You'll learn 20 CANVA TIPS AND TRICKS. In this CANVA TUTORIAL FOR BEGINNERS, you'll learn 20 of my favorite tips and tricks that you wish you knew earlier to help you design and work more seamlessly on Canva. You'll learn some handy keyboard shortcuts and little hacks to help you get further with Canva.

⭐ Get your free 30-day Canva Pro access:
👉 https://aurelius.link/canva

*▼ ▽ JOIN THE COMMUNITY - THE PRODUCTIVE DIGITAL CREATOR*
Join 20,000+ email subscribers who receive the latest tips and tutorials directly from me. 

✉️ Signup is free: https://aureliustjin.com/newsletter

*🌟  SOCIALS*
INSTAGRAM: https://instagram.com/aureliustjin
TWITTER: https://twitter.com/aureliustjin
WEBSITE: https://AureliusTjin.com

🧰  TOOLS & GEAR I USE: https://www.aureliustjin.com/tools
🛒  SHOP MY PRODUCTS: https://www.aureliustjin.com/shop
📅  MY YOUTUBE CONTENT PLANNER: https://aurelius.link/master
☕  BUY ME A COFFEE and get 5 BONUSES: https://aureliustjin.com/coffee

*▼ ▽  MY RECOMMENDED TOOLS*
🚀 vidIQ - My secret YouTube growth tool. Start for just $1: https://vidiq.com/aureliustjin
🌐 Hostinger - Affordable web hosting to build your website: https://aurelius.link/hostinger (Coupon: AURELIUS)
🎨 Canva Pro - Worth every penny for all your design needs: https://aurelius.link/canva
📘 Designrr - Ebook maker with dozens of templates: https://aurelius.link/designrr
🎵 Epidemic Sound - Where I get all my music for YouTube videos: https://aurelius.link/epidemicsound

▼ ▽ TIMESTAMPS

00:00 - Introduction
00:31 - Tip 1: How to select difficult layers
01:02 - Tip 2: Design a beautiful ebook cover or product mockup
02:30 - Tip 3: How to add a drop shadow text effect on Canva
02:53 - Tip 4: Moving elements with arrow keys
03:04 - Tip 5: How to add a gradient background on Canva
04:09 - Tip 6: The fastest and easiest way to add text
04:23 - Tip 7: How to save your favorite colors into your Brand Kit
05:07 - Tip 8: How to upload images on Canva faster
05:26 - Tip 9: How to duplicate text and elements
06:00 - Tip 10: How to zoom in/out faster (keyboard shortcuts)
06:30 - Tip 11: How to group text and elements
07:06 - Tip 12: How to crop images on Canva
07:30 - Tip 13: Filtering by Free/Pro elements or photos
07:59 - Tip 14: How to filter elements or photos by color
08:22 - Tip 15: How to hyperlink text for PDFs
08:57 - Tip 16: How to use Canva Templates to save time and get more done
09:55 - Tip 17: How to perfectly align text and elements with guides, rulers, and positioning
10:48 - Tip 18: How to remove backgrounds from photos with one click
11:15 - Tip 19: How to create a trendy highlight/stroke effect for YouTube thumbnails
12:12 - Tip 20: How to use Canva Frames


▼ ▽ LINKS & RESOURCES

Get your free 30-day Canva Pro access:
 https://aurelius.link/canva

SmartMockups:
https://aurelius.link/smartmockups


▼ ▽ WATCH THESE NEXT
How To Create an Ebook on Canva (Step by Step)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wO26Xqzq_t4

Full SmartMockups Tutorial For Beginners:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjeSROzBSCQ

20 Digital Product Ideas:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UDohm4RQeQU

______________

▶  CONNECT WITH ME
INSTAGRAM: https://instagram.com/aureliustjin
TWITTER: https://twitter.com/aureliustjin
WEBSITE: https://AureliusTjin.com
PARTNERSHIPS & SPONSORSHIPS: partnerships@aureliustjin.com

Disclaimer: Some of the links above contain affiliate links, meaning I will earn a small commission when you purchase through my link at no additional cost to you.

In this video, I'm going to share with you 20 Canva tips, tricks and hacks that you can apply today to become a better designer using Canva and make your workflow a whole lot smoother.

Hey, my name is Aurelius and on this channel, I share my tips, tool reviews and training to help you build and scale your digital business.

So if that interests you, be sure to hit that subscribe button below, turn on notifications too, so that you'll be the first to know of any new videos I post up here on this channel.

With that said, I wanna share with you 20 tips, tricks, and hacks that I wish I knew when I started using Canva.

Now, tip number 1 I wanna share with you is when you're working with multiple layers sometimes you will come across layers that are quite close together.

I want to select the middle layer but sometimes that can be challenging so what you do if you're using Mac hold the command key but if you're using Windows hold the control key.

So holding down my command key now I'll click on my mouse button that will then select the next layer behind it.

If I click again that will select the layer behind that and now as you can see that layer is selected I can do whatever I want to it like changing colors just like that.

1 of the other features I love about Canva is that they have a range of book covers or ebook covers.

If you simply search for ebook cover you'll see a range of these ebook covers right here.

If you load up any of the ebook covers, you'll see here you can edit it and do whatever you want.

However, the issue then is that you're stuck with this 2D flat looking book cover.

To make it look more realistic like an actual book cover, you can use a tool called Smart Mockups.

Thankfully, Canva does integrate with Smart Mockups and here's how to do it.

From the top you'll see an option for Smart Mockups.

Click on Smart Mockups, click on Save and what that will do is publish it.

Go to smartmockups.com and sign up for a free account or upgrade for more designs.

Once you're in, go to all mockups and from the left you'll see here magazines and books.

Choose a mockup style, now you are limited depending on what level of plan you are.

For this demo I'm going to choose 1 of the free options, you can see the pro ones have a lock icon there.

Under book cover you'll see upload from, select that, choose Canva and now I can see my template loaded there.

From here you can crop your image, sometimes it may not fit so just adjust it the way you want.

Click on crop and continue and now it's on the actual mock-up.

I can also customize the background here and once done I can download it and use it for my website.

The next tip I want to share with you is adding a shadow effect.

It's as simple as selecting the text, going to effects and choosing shadow and there you have the shadow.

Now you can make finer adjustments such as the color of the shadow, so let's say white.

You can change the direction and the angle of your shadow.

You can also change the transparency of it.

The next tip is quite fundamental and will be handy no matter what you are designing on Canva and that is moving certain elements.

To really fine tune the elements on your design, all you need to do is just use your arrows on your keyboard.

And I'm simply pressing up and down, or you can hold the key left and right.

Now that's going to only move it 1 pixel at a time.

You can hold the shift key on your keyboard and move it so that it moves 10 pixels at a time, like so.

Next up I want to show you how to add a gradient to the background of any image.

So simply go to elements, search for gradient.

What you want to look for is the square so I'm going to select that.

I'm just going to drag it so that it starts from the corner there and then drag it from the corner.

From here you can change the colors by looking at the top left, changing the first color, I'll just change it to yellow, and the secondary color to orange.

And as you can see, now we've got the gradient effect.

You can also make the gradient start the other way, So click on flip, flip horizontally.

If you want it going horizontally, just use the rotate feature and like so.

The really simple way to add text, instead of going to text and then choosing from there, is to simply hit the T button on your keyboard.

From there you can change the sizes and do whatever you want to it.

Next up, if you use specific colors on a regular basis, it's wise to use their brand kit so that you can refer back to it like mine right here I've got some colors you can see here that's my color palette based on my branding all you need to do if you are on the design you can click on add another palette or from the home page click on brand kit from here click on add new palette.

To start using your brand colors simply select an element, let's say this text, then go into the color and now you can see the new color palette added.

Now I can select whatever colors I want based on those colors.

For the next tip, what I want to share with you is instead of uploading your files to your uploads and clicking upload an image or video, all you really need to do is open your folder, I've got mine here, drag and drop it and that's pretty much it.

This is a more intuitive method of doing it and it'll save you a heap of time.

For this next tip, I want to show you how to duplicate or clone certain or specific elements.

Let's take this heart element as an example.

Select it and we can simply go and duplicate it and drag it wherever we want.

All you need to do on your keyboard for Mac users, Command D or Windows Control D.

And just like that, I've duplicated that element.

An even faster method is to hold the option key on your Mac or alt key I think on the Windows and then using your mouse you just drag and that'll clone it.

The next tip is zooming in and zooming out.

Sometimes the elements and the canvas looks quite small on screen.

So what you want to do is use the zoom feature.

You can either use it from here by selecting the percentage Or you can use the command key on the Mac or control on the Windows system and then plus minusing on your keyboard like so.

My favourite way to do it is holding the command key and scrolling up and down using my mouse.

Okay, next tip is grouping text or elements.

Let's say I want to group these 2 elements right here.

All I need to do really is just select the first element, holding the shift key on my keyboard then selecting the second element and let's say this icon here or this element.

Clicking again and now that's all grouped together and now what I want to do is click on the group option and now that's grouped together.

So now when I move this anywhere it is all grouped together and it won't lose its position.

To ungroup it simply select any of those elements and click on ungroup and you're done.

Because Canva doesn't have an eraser tool we need to be able to just use the cropping feature.

So click on the element you want to crop, click on crop once you've selected it and from here we can now use these drag options to crop it where we want.

So let's say halfway here, click on done and now it's cropped.

Now for this next tip we are going to filter based on free or Canva Pro elements.

So by selecting the filter icon at the top here once we're in elements we can choose whether it's free or pro elements that we want to search for.

Now apply the filters, search for what we want and now these are all the free elements that we can select rather than having the pro elements together.

The next tip I want to share with you is filtering by color.

So all you need to do is search for whatever element you want first.

So I'll search for sunglasses here and from the filters I'll then select the color that I want.

So let's say I only want red sunglasses, I'll select the red color, apply filters, and as you can see, these are all the elements I can use based on red sunglasses.

Next up is hyperlinking certain text so that if you are saving it as a PDF for example, you want your viewer or customer to be able to click on a specific text, then this may be handy.

So let's zoom into this particular text here and let's say we want this line of text to be hyperlinked.

I'll just select it and clicking on the link icon, I'll then enter my URL.

Here's a PDF we downloaded, and if we click on the hyperlink, we're then taken to our link.

Next up, I wanna teach you how to use templates.

This is especially useful if you have some social media templates that you usually use.

Let's say you create quotes and you stick to 1 design or a couple of designs.

This is how you are going to save some time.

All I need to do is just save it here, scroll down to your fine template, click on template, add the template to a specific folder, so let's say your marketing folder, click on select folder, publish the template, and now it's added to your templates.

To use your template for next time, you can find the folder here or go to all your folders and you'll find your folder there.

Select the template, click on it and either choose use this template or edit original.

Obviously, you just want to use this template not edit the original.

Now it's loaded from the template and you can freely edit it without affecting the original template.

Moving on to the next tip what I want to share with you is perfect alignment.

How do you align text and all sorts of elements so that it is perfectly aligned.

Let me first share with you the first way.

Now if you want to center the text it's hard to know where the center is.

For this text here let's say we want that dead set in the middle.

All we need to do is just go to position, click on middle, then to the center, and there you have it, that's right in the middle.

The second way to perfectly align elements and text is to go to file, turn on show rulers.

From the ruler, you want to just drag using your mouse, set where you want your text or elements to start, and then start dragging your element, and you can see that it's lined right there.

To remove the guide, All you need to do is just use your mouse again and drag it away.

Next up, I want to show you how to remove backgrounds using Canva.

However, side note, this is a Canva Pro feature, but let's say I have this image right here and I want to remove the background of this.

Simply hit effects once selected, click on background remover and in just a matter of seconds you'll see the background removed.

Now I can use this image for my YouTube thumbnails or any other marketing collateral.

Next up what I want to show you is how to create that highlight or stroke effect around yourself and you may have seen this in many YouTube thumbnails.

Select your image and we're going to make a copy and we're going to work on the back layer here.

Choosing effects, make sure you select duotone and choose any of the effects since we are going to change the color anyway.

And we are gonna change the background first so obviously it stands out.

Next up, with your main image, you wanna put it over.

And from here, we're going to resize it just a tad.

And we can get away with that, but if you want, you can also move it with your arrows.

And now you've got the highlight effect that now you can use on your thumbnails.

The next tip I wanna share with you is canvas frames.

So if we search for frames, selecting 1 of the frames, let's say this screen here, I'm going to resize this a bit, you'll see a placeholder image.

This means that if you upload or drag any image here, you'll only show the photo based on the frame.

So for example, let's go to uploads and choosing 1 of these images here.

Let's say this 1 here, I'll just drag it.

And as you can see, it's automatically cropped the image to fit the frame.

To select a different part of that photo, simply double tap or double click and then move across.

If you learned a thing or 2, be sure to hit that like button and subscribe if you're new.

Make sure to turn on notifications too so that you don't miss out on any tips, tools and training post up here on this channel.

Thanks so much for watching and I'll see you


Speaker 0: In this video, I'm going to share with you 20 Canva tips, tricks and hacks that you can apply today to become a better designer using Canva and make your workflow a whole lot smoother. Hey, my name is Aurelius and on this channel, I share my tips, tool reviews and training to help you build and scale your digital business. So if that interests you, be sure to hit that subscribe button below, turn on notifications too, so that you'll be the first to know of any new videos I post up here on this channel. With that said, I wanna share with you 20 tips, tricks, and hacks that I wish I knew when I started using Canva. Now, tip number 1 I wanna share with you is when you're working with multiple layers sometimes you will come across layers that are quite close together.

I want to select the middle layer but sometimes that can be challenging so what you do if you're using Mac hold the command key but if you're using Windows hold the control key. So holding down my command key now I'll click on my mouse button that will then select the next layer behind it. If I click again that will select the layer behind that and now as you can see that layer is selected I can do whatever I want to it like changing colors just like that. 1 of the other features I love about Canva is that they have a range of book covers or ebook covers. If you simply search for ebook cover you'll see a range of these ebook covers right here.

If you load up any of the ebook covers, you'll see here you can edit it and do whatever you want. However, the issue then is that you're stuck with this 2D flat looking book cover. To make it look more realistic like an actual book cover, you can use a tool called Smart Mockups. Thankfully, Canva does integrate with Smart Mockups and here's how to do it. From the top you'll see an option for Smart Mockups.

Click on Smart Mockups, click on Save and what that will do is publish it. Go to smartmockups.com and sign up for a free account or upgrade for more designs. Once you're in, go to all mockups and from the left you'll see here magazines and books. Choose a mockup style, now you are limited depending on what level of plan you are. For this demo I'm going to choose 1 of the free options, you can see the pro ones have a lock icon there.

Let's choose this 1. Under book cover you'll see upload from, select that, choose Canva and now I can see my template loaded there. From here you can crop your image, sometimes it may not fit so just adjust it the way you want. Click on crop and continue and now it's on the actual mock-up. I can also customize the background here and once done I can download it and use it for my website.

The next tip I want to share with you is adding a shadow effect. It's as simple as selecting the text, going to effects and choosing shadow and there you have the shadow. Now you can make finer adjustments such as the color of the shadow, so let's say white. You can change the direction and the angle of your shadow. You can also change the transparency of it.

The next tip is quite fundamental and will be handy no matter what you are designing on Canva and that is moving certain elements. To really fine tune the elements on your design, all you need to do is just use your arrows on your keyboard. And I'm simply pressing up and down, or you can hold the key left and right. Now that's going to only move it 1 pixel at a time. You can hold the shift key on your keyboard and move it so that it moves 10 pixels at a time, like so.

Next up I want to show you how to add a gradient to the background of any image. So simply go to elements, search for gradient. What you want to look for is the square so I'm going to select that. That's going to apply it to your design. I'm just going to drag it so that it starts from the corner there and then drag it from the corner.

From here you can change the colors by looking at the top left, changing the first color, I'll just change it to yellow, and the secondary color to orange. And as you can see, now we've got the gradient effect. You can also make the gradient start the other way, So click on flip, flip horizontally. Now this is vertical. If you want it going horizontally, just use the rotate feature and like so.

The really simple way to add text, instead of going to text and then choosing from there, is to simply hit the T button on your keyboard. From there you can change the sizes and do whatever you want to it. Next up, if you use specific colors on a regular basis, it's wise to use their brand kit so that you can refer back to it like mine right here I've got some colors you can see here that's my color palette based on my branding all you need to do if you are on the design you can click on add another palette or from the home page click on brand kit from here click on add new palette. Select all the colors that you want. Once it's added, give it a name.

To start using your brand colors simply select an element, let's say this text, then go into the color and now you can see the new color palette added. Now I can select whatever colors I want based on those colors. For the next tip, what I want to share with you is instead of uploading your files to your uploads and clicking upload an image or video, all you really need to do is open your folder, I've got mine here, drag and drop it and that's pretty much it. This is a more intuitive method of doing it and it'll save you a heap of time. For this next tip, I want to show you how to duplicate or clone certain or specific elements.

Let's take this heart element as an example. Select it and we can simply go and duplicate it and drag it wherever we want. Now there is a shortcut for this. All you need to do on your keyboard for Mac users, Command D or Windows Control D. And just like that, I've duplicated that element.

An even faster method is to hold the option key on your Mac or alt key I think on the Windows and then using your mouse you just drag and that'll clone it. The next tip is zooming in and zooming out. Sometimes the elements and the canvas looks quite small on screen. So what you want to do is use the zoom feature. You can either use it from here by selecting the percentage Or you can use the command key on the Mac or control on the Windows system and then plus minusing on your keyboard like so.

My favourite way to do it is holding the command key and scrolling up and down using my mouse. Okay, next tip is grouping text or elements. Let's say I want to group these 2 elements right here. All I need to do really is just select the first element, holding the shift key on my keyboard then selecting the second element and let's say this icon here or this element. Clicking again and now that's all grouped together and now what I want to do is click on the group option and now that's grouped together.

So now when I move this anywhere it is all grouped together and it won't lose its position. To ungroup it simply select any of those elements and click on ungroup and you're done. Alright the next tip is cropping. Because Canva doesn't have an eraser tool we need to be able to just use the cropping feature. So click on the element you want to crop, click on crop once you've selected it and from here we can now use these drag options to crop it where we want.

So let's say halfway here, click on done and now it's cropped. Now for this next tip we are going to filter based on free or Canva Pro elements. So by selecting the filter icon at the top here once we're in elements we can choose whether it's free or pro elements that we want to search for. So let's say free. Now apply the filters, search for what we want and now these are all the free elements that we can select rather than having the pro elements together.

The next tip I want to share with you is filtering by color. So all you need to do is search for whatever element you want first. So I'll search for sunglasses here and from the filters I'll then select the color that I want. So let's say I only want red sunglasses, I'll select the red color, apply filters, and as you can see, these are all the elements I can use based on red sunglasses. Next up is hyperlinking certain text so that if you are saving it as a PDF for example, you want your viewer or customer to be able to click on a specific text, then this may be handy.

So let's zoom into this particular text here and let's say we want this line of text to be hyperlinked. I'll just select it and clicking on the link icon, I'll then enter my URL. Click on apply, and now this is linked. Here's a PDF we downloaded, and if we click on the hyperlink, we're then taken to our link. Next up, I wanna teach you how to use templates.

This is especially useful if you have some social media templates that you usually use. Let's say you create quotes and you stick to 1 design or a couple of designs. This is how you are going to save some time. Let's say this is my finished template. All I need to do is just save it here, scroll down to your fine template, click on template, add the template to a specific folder, so let's say your marketing folder, click on select folder, publish the template, and now it's added to your templates.

To use your template for next time, you can find the folder here or go to all your folders and you'll find your folder there. Select the template, click on it and either choose use this template or edit original. Obviously, you just want to use this template not edit the original. Click on use this template. Now it's loaded from the template and you can freely edit it without affecting the original template.

Moving on to the next tip what I want to share with you is perfect alignment. How do you align text and all sorts of elements so that it is perfectly aligned. Let me first share with you the first way. Now if you want to center the text it's hard to know where the center is. Let me share with you the first way.

For this text here let's say we want that dead set in the middle. All we need to do is just go to position, click on middle, then to the center, and there you have it, that's right in the middle. The second way to perfectly align elements and text is to go to file, turn on show rulers. From the ruler, you want to just drag using your mouse, set where you want your text or elements to start, and then start dragging your element, and you can see that it's lined right there. I'll also align the other heading.

To remove the guide, All you need to do is just use your mouse again and drag it away. Next up, I want to show you how to remove backgrounds using Canva. However, side note, this is a Canva Pro feature, but let's say I have this image right here and I want to remove the background of this. Simply hit effects once selected, click on background remover and in just a matter of seconds you'll see the background removed. Now I can use this image for my YouTube thumbnails or any other marketing collateral.

Next up what I want to show you is how to create that highlight or stroke effect around yourself and you may have seen this in many YouTube thumbnails. Here's how to do it. Select your image and we're going to make a copy and we're going to work on the back layer here. Choosing effects, make sure you select duotone and choose any of the effects since we are going to change the color anyway. Select again.

For the highlight just select white. For the shadows select white as well. And we are gonna change the background first so obviously it stands out. Choosing my color here. Next up, with your main image, you wanna put it over.

And from here, we're going to resize it just a tad. And we can get away with that, but if you want, you can also move it with your arrows. And now you've got the highlight effect that now you can use on your thumbnails. The next tip I wanna share with you is canvas frames. So if we search for frames, selecting 1 of the frames, let's say this screen here, I'm going to resize this a bit, you'll see a placeholder image.

This means that if you upload or drag any image here, you'll only show the photo based on the frame. So for example, let's go to uploads and choosing 1 of these images here. Let's say this 1 here, I'll just drag it. And as you can see, it's automatically cropped the image to fit the frame. To select a different part of that photo, simply double tap or double click and then move across.

Alright, so there we go. If you learned a thing or 2, be sure to hit that like button and subscribe if you're new. Make sure to turn on notifications too so that you don't miss out on any tips, tools and training post up here on this channel. Thanks so much for watching and I'll see you

See all Aurelius Tjin transcripts on Youtube

20 CANVA TIPS AND TRICKS // Canva Tutorial For Beginners