Canva is a mouse-first tool, and its shortcut list is short by design — but the ones it has are the ones designers reach for hundreds of times in a session: duplicate, nudge, reorder layers, resize text. Canva runs in the browser and in desktop apps, and the bindings are the same in both; on macOS substitute Cmd for Ctrl.
Basic Editing9
Text9
Elements & Layers7
Pages & View7
Duplicate and nudge are most of the work
Ctrl + D duplicates the selected element in place, and Alt + Drag duplicates while moving, which is how you lay out a row of identical cards. Arrow nudges a selection one pixel and Shift + Arrow ten, so aligning to a guide is a matter of counting presses rather than dragging. Ctrl + G groups elements so they move together and Ctrl + Shift + G breaks the group; grouping before duplicating saves rebuilding the layout for each copy.
Layer order without the panel
Canva's position panel is slow when a design has many elements. Ctrl + ] and Ctrl + [ move the selection one layer up or down, and the Shift variants — Ctrl + Shift + ] and Ctrl + Shift + [ — jump it to the front or back. The most common use is Ctrl + Shift + [ on a freshly added background shape that has landed on top of everything.
Text and pages
T with nothing selected adds a text box at the centre of the page. Ctrl + Shift + . and Ctrl + Shift + , step the font size up and down, which is faster than editing the size field. Ctrl + Enter adds a new page after the current one, and Ctrl + Shift + P starts presentation mode from the current page — useful for a quick full-screen check of a slide deck. Ctrl + 0 fits the page to the window after zooming in for detail work.
Frequently asked questions
Do Canva shortcuts work in the mobile app?
No. The shortcuts apply to the browser version and the Windows and macOS desktop apps; the iOS and Android apps are touch-only.
How do I nudge an element by exactly ten pixels?
Select it and press Shift + Arrow. A plain Arrow key moves one pixel.
Is there a shortcut to send an element to the back?
Ctrl + Shift + [ sends the selection to the bottom layer; Ctrl + [ moves it down one layer at a time.
Why does T not add a text box?
T only works when nothing is selected and the cursor is not in a text field. Click an empty area of the page first.