Add a touch of magic to your Canva presentations with Magic Shortcuts! These fun, interactive animations can make your slides more engaging and memorable.
In this tutorial, you’ll learn:
- How to activate Magic Shortcuts in Canva’s presentation mode.
- A complete guide to shortcut effects like confetti, blur, and drumroll.
- Seasonal effects for Halloween and Thanksgiving, like spiders and falling leaves.
Resources Mentioned
- Free Trial of Canva Pro (Affiliate Link)
Summary of Canva Presentation Magic Shortcuts
- B for Blur
- Q for Quiet
- O for Bubbles
- C for Confetti
- D for Drumroll
- U for Curtain Call
- M for Mic Drop
- I for Pie (Thanksgiving)
- F for Falling Leaves (Thanksgiving)
- S for Spider (Halloween)
- G for Ghost (Halloween)
Transcript
Magic Shortcuts in Canva are a fun way to add a touch of interactive magic to your presentations. Whether you want to add a dramatic curtain call or surprise your audience with confetti, these shortcuts can be a great way to engage viewers.
However, if you don’t want unexpected animations to suddenly appear, it’s good to know how they work.
Accidentally hitting certain keys can trigger animations – as my friend Dara found out when she startled herself by triggering a spider with the S key while recording a presentation!
So, let’s go over how these work so you can use them (or avoid them) as you see fit.
Opening the Magic Shortcuts Panel
This feature will be available to you while you’re in present mode for one of your Canva designs, so to show you the shortcuts feature, I’m just going to open this presentation design and then click on “Present” in the top corner of the editor.
Once the presentation is in present mode, you can trigger any of Canva’s magic shortcuts with the touch of a key:
- Press B to blur your slide, creating a soft-focus effect. Press B again to unblur.
- Press Q to bring up a character making a shushing gesture, which you can dismiss by pressing Q again.
- Press O to release floating bubbles across the slide. This effect will disappear on its own after a moment.
- Press C to shower the slide with confetti. This also clears up automatically.
- Press D for a drumroll effect. Pressing D again stops it.
- Press U to close curtains on your slide. Press U again to open them to the sound of audience applause.
- Press M for a mic drop animation, and press M again to remove it.
Seasonal Magic Shortcuts
Canva also introduces seasonal Magic Shortcuts that bring festive elements to presentations during specific holidays or times of the year. These are only available seasonally, so they may not be active year-round. Here are the ones I know of:
- At Thanksgiving, pressing I conjures a pie animation, as a nod to the holiday.
- Press F to create a gentle falling leaves effect, another Thanksgiving-inspired animation.
- Available during Halloween, pressing S will summon a spooky spider animation – as my friend Dara found out the hard way!
- Also available during Halloween, G will bring up a ghost on your slide.
Unfortunately I can’t demonstrate those features right now as, like I said, they’re not always available year round.
Each of these seasonal shortcuts adds a fun, holiday-specific touch to your presentations, but remember they may change each year!
Magic Shortcuts are a lighthearted way to interact with your audience and keep presentations lively. Whether you use them sparingly for emphasis or lean into the festive animations around the holidays, Magic Shortcuts are a unique Canva feature that can make your presentations memorable.
