Canva is used by lots of non-designers and designers alike. I’ve used it for years to get ideas about font pairings, create quick graphics, and design templates.
When working with multiple elements, things can get a bit messy. You can gain more control over your Canva designs by using the group feature to put elements together.
This article will show you how to group Canva elements quickly and easily.
Although you cannot group grids and charts, other elements like text, graphics, lines, etc., are fair game.
Grouping elements is simple to do and should certainly be a part of your design process if you want to make the best possible work you can. The group feature allows you to move, align, and lock elements together.
Note: All the elements in Canva can be grouped except grids and charts.
How to Group Elements in Canva
Sometimes the different elements in your design can't be easily identified because they are overlapping each other. You might also have elements very close together that make mouse-tapping impossible. You can easily create multiple grouped items to make the design easier to work with. You can ungroup the elements just as easy.
1. Select elements that you want to group together. Do this by dragging your cursor around them, Or by holding down the “shift” key and clicking each element that you want included. You will see a dotted blue line that selects each element as you drag.
2. Move your mouse to the top right of the screen and click “group.”
Keyboard shortcut: Command/Ctrl + G
Now your elements are grouped together. You will now see a box with a solid blue line around your grouped elements.
Ungroup Elements in Canva
Similar to the way you group elements in Canva, you can ungroup elements. Select the group, move your mouse to the top right of the screen and click “ungroup.”
Making the Most of Groupings
The group feature can be used in many different ways when grouping your design elements: vector elements, photos, images, text, graphics, photos, even video together. The ability to group elements in canva and manipulate them within your design, puts you in the driver's seat.
Moving your Grouped Elements in Canva
To move your group of elements, place your cursor inside the outlined box, right-click with your mouse, and then drag it where you want it to be.
To deslelect the group, click outside of the outlined box.
NOTE: Once your elements are grouped, you will not be able to edit them individually. To edit any of the group elements, you’ll have to ungroup them first.
Locking Elements in Canva
Grouping elements is awesome, however, when working on more complicated designs, you can be even more productive by using the Lock feature.
Let’s say you’ve designed a pretty cool graphic with text. You want to move the design to the other side of the layout page, without moving the text. You need to “Lock” the text so it doesn’t move with the rest of the design.
To lock the text (or any element that you don’t want moved), select the text and them move your mouse to the top right corner of the Canva desktop, where you’ll see the “Lock” icon.
Click the lock. Now you won’t be able to move the selected element.
To unlock the element, click the “Lock” icon again.
Increase and Decrease Elements in Size
Once grouped together, you can increase or decrease the dimensions all at once. This includes moving designs or elements to a folder. Canva makes it easy to resize everything all at once.
Duplicate Elements in Canva
If you need to copy design elements, click the "duplicate button" in the upper corner of the window. This is available on all the elements in Canva except grids and charts.
Once clicked, the elements you selected will be duplicated instantly. Duplicating a particular element or group of elements, which is a huge timesaver over having to create the elements individually all over again.
No Stress Social Media Image Resize
As an additional perk, Canva Pro allows you to quickly resize your designs to fit any social media platform. You can group, lock, and change a group or change its corresponding components in one shot by clicking on the Resize icon at the top of the screen.
Delete Elements Quickly on Canva
Another handy feature of using group elements in Canva, is that instead of having to delete separate elements one at a time. You can group them together and then delete all at once.
Group and Ungroup Elements in Canva on Android and iPhone
Canva's mobile app is almost as easy to use as the desktop version. To group elements, tap and hold one of the elements (see #1) until "1 item selected" or a 1 shows on top of the "select multiple" tab. Then tap each element that you want to include in the group once. The number on the "select multiple tap" will show the number you've selected. Afterwards, Tap select "Group."
To ungroup your items tap the grouped elements and then tap the "ungroup" button.
Now that you know how to group elements in Canva, when are you going to start using this feature?