Once your design is ready, the next step is getting it out into the world. In this Canva tutorial, I’ll show you the different ways to download and share your Canva designs so you can choose the right format for your needs. This video will help you confidently export and share your Canva projects without running into frustrating file issues.
Resources Mentioned
- Free Trial of Canva Pro (Affiliate Link)
Transcript
Finishing your design in Canva is only half the process, and the next step is getting it off the Canva canvas and into the world!
Sometimes that means downloading a file you can post, print, or upload elsewhere, and other times it means sharing your design directly with collaborators, clients, or your audience.
In this tutorial, I’ll walk you through Canva’s download settings, the most common issues to watch out for, and the different ways you can share your designs depending on who needs to see or use them.
Let’s start with downloading.
How to Download Designs in Canva
To access download options, click the Share button in the top-right corner of the editor. From there, you’ll see the Download option in the panel that appears. The choices available will change depending on the file type you select.
For example, if you choose PNG, you’ll notice several Canva Pro features marked with a small crown icon.
One of these is the ability to download your design at 2x or 3x the original size, which can be especially helpful when uploading to platforms that compress images, like Facebook or Instagram. This higher-resolution version often prevents your design from appearing blurry after upload, which is particularly useful for text-heavy designs or email headers.
You can also download with a transparent background, which is ideal for logos or graphics that need to be layered. Pro users can compress their files to reduce load time, and there’s also an option to limit file size if you need to stay under platform upload limits.
If you’re not on Canva Pro yet, don’t forget you can test out all of its premium features for free by going to BrendaCadman.com/pro.
If your design includes multiple pages, you can download all of them or choose just specific pages .
Choosing JPG provides similar Pro-only options for adjusting image size, quality, and file size limits. JPGs are generally smaller than PNGs, so they’re often a better choice if you’re trying to reduce load times or upload to a platform with file size restrictions.
For documents like lead magnets, workbooks, or slide decks, you’ll typically use either PDF Standard or PDF Print. PDF Standard is best for digital sharing and will preserve any hyperlinks you’ve added to your design. PDF Print is intended for high-quality printing and gives you options to include crop marks and bleed.
You can also choose to flatten the file, which merges all your design elements into one layer, something that may be requested by your printer or useful if you want to make it harder for others to extract elements from your design.
Canva Pro users can also download designs as SVG files, which are vector-based and great for logos or illustrations that need to be scaled without losing quality. And if your design is a presentation, you’ll see the option to download it as a PowerPoint file.
For any animated or video content, you can download it as a GIF or MP4 Video, depending on how you plan to use it.
Before we move on to sharing options, I want to quickly cover a couple of common download issues that can trip people up, especially if you’re newer to Canva or working quickly and miss a small detail in the settings. These are easy fixes once you know what’s going on, and they’ll save you a lot of frustration if you ever find yourself wondering why a download isn’t behaving the way you expected.
Missing File Types in Download Options
If you go to download your design and notice that PNG, JPG, or other image formats aren’t available, it’s quite possibly because your design was created using the Canva Doc format. Canva Docs are more like word processing documents with a continuous scroll rather than defined pages, and they don’t support image exports, only formats like PDF or Word Doc.
If you plan to save something as an image, make sure to start with a more traditional Canva design type, like an Instagram Post or a US Letter-sized document. That will give you more flexibility with downloading in multiple formats.
But what if you’ve already created your design in a Canva Doc and want to fix it?
Since there’s no way to resize or transform a Canva Doc into another design type, your best workaround is likely going to be to download the Doc as a PDF, then re-upload that PDF into Canva. Once opened, the design will behave like a standard multi-page layout again, and you’ll regain access to image download options, including resizing if you’re on Canva Pro. You may need to make some layout adjustments, but you won’t have to start from scratch.
PDFs Saving as Separate Images
If you meant to download a multi-page design as a single PDF, but Canva is saving it as a bunch of separate images, it’s likely just a file type mix-up. This can happen if you accidentally leave the file type set to PNG or JPG, both of which will save each page as an image instead.
To fix this, simply change the file type in your download settings to PDF Standard or PDF Print, and Canva will save it as one cohesive, multi-page PDF file.
Of course, downloading isn’t the only way to get your design into the hands of others. Sometimes you don’t need a file at all. Sometimes you just want to send someone a quick preview, collaborate on edits, or hand off a template they can customize themselves. That’s where Canva’s sharing options come in, and there are quite a few ways you can control how and with whom your design is shared.
How to Share Designs in Canva
To share your design in Canva, click the Share button in the top-right corner of the editor. This will open the Share panel, where you can control who has access, what they’re allowed to do, and how you want to share the design, whether that’s with collaborators, clients, or a wider audience.
The first section is People with access, where you can add specific individuals by typing their email address. This is useful if you’re working with a small team or want to send the design directly to a client or colleague.
Just below that, you’ll see the Access level section, which controls the default visibility for the link. When you click the dropdown, you’ll see three options:
- Only you can access: This means the design is private and only you can view or edit it.
- Your team name (if you’re part of a Canva team): This allows anyone on your Canva team to access the design via the link. If you’re not part of a team, this option won’t appear.
- Or Anyone with the link: This makes the design publicly accessible to anyone who has the link.
Once you’ve made the design visible to others, either by adding people directly or changing the link access, you can set their individual permission level. These include:
- Can edit, which gives full access to make changes to the design
- Can comment, which enables them to leave feedback using comments, but not edit the design itself, or
- Can view, which is read-only access. This option is ideal for when you just want someone to preview the design without making any changes
If you want to send someone a quick preview, but don’t want to mess with editing permissions or team access, Canva also offers a Public view link option further down in the Share panel. This creates a read-only link ideal for presentations, portfolios, or documents you want someone to see but not touch.
And if you’re on Canva Pro, you can even create multiple unique view links for the same design. You can even toggle on the “Notify me when accessed” option if you want to be alerted when the design is viewed for the first time. It’s a subtle but helpful tool when you’re managing proposals, pitch decks, or time-sensitive content and want to follow up promptly.
Canva also includes a variety of other sharing options from the Share menu, including the ability to print your design, schedule it for social media, or publish it as a website.
Saving as a Canva Brand Template or Template Link
If you’re using Canva Pro, there are a couple of additional sharing tools available to you that can make collaboration and content distribution much easier, especially if you’re working with clients or a team.
For example, you might create brand templates for your social media posts, presentations, or client proposals—anything you find yourself making again and again. Publishing it as a brand template means it’s stored in your account and easy to reuse whenever you need it.
You can still customize each new design, but the layout, fonts, and brand styling stay consistent, so everything you create feels cohesive. And if you do work with team members, brand templates also make it easier to keep everyone designing on-brand without a lot of back-and-forth.
To publish a design as a brand template, just click the Brand Template option in your share panel, but a reminder that this option is only available on a paid Canva plan. And if you don’t see the brand template option, you should be able to find it under “See all.”
Also, keep in mind that brand templates can’t be shared outside your account or team—they’re meant for internal use.
If you need to share a template with people outside your Canva team, like clients or customers, you’ll want to share a template link instead. A template link creates a standalone, editable copy of the design that someone else can open in their own Canva account, without impacting the original design. This is the method used by most people who sell or distribute Canva templates.
Just note that as of early 2025, Canva made a change and template links can now only be created with a Canva Pro account. If you’re on a free account and wondering why the option’s missing, that’s why.
So those are the main ways you can download and share your designs in Canva. Whether you’re exporting for print, saving a quick social post, or handing off a template for someone else to use, knowing these options will save you time and prevent the frustration of picking the wrong format.
