How to Group Elements in Canva
When you work in Canva and add things to the design, these are known as elements. This might be a text box, an icon or even a coloured box. It can be an image or a pattern that sits behind other elements.
As you start to fine-tune your design, one of the things you’ll want to know is how to group elements in Canva. So let’s take a look at why you need to know this and what to do.
Why group elements together?
There are lots of reasons why you might want to group elements together inside a design but the most popular one is to make sure you can move them around without losing the layout.
When you group elements, you can move them as one and they will retain their layout in relation to each other. So maybe you have some words, a shaped box and an icon just in the right layout. But they aren’t sitting on the right part of the photo. By grouping them, you can move them to the new spot, without losing their relative positions to each other.
Grouping elements works for elements, text boxes, images and videos. It doesn’t work for grids or charts.
How to group elements in Canva
The first way to group elements in Canva is to use the right mouse button to create a grab tool then move it over all of the elements you want to group. A dotted blue line will appear around the outside edge of the group while elements within will have a solid blue line.
Then at the top of the screen, there’s a ‘Group’ option to press and they are made into one. All of the elements within the lines will be made into a group.
Grouping only some elements
The only problem with this is if you have a background image or something under the items that you don’t want to group. Using the grab tool will grab everything. But you can be more specific.
Right-click one of the elements. Then use the Shift + Right Click option to select each of the other elements you want to group. Once they are all highlighted with the dotted and solid lines, select the Group option at the top.
How to ungroup elements in Canva
Once elements are grouped, you can make changes but they’ll retain the original dimensions. So if you want to change the size of the text, it will make the whole group larger to accommodate. You might not want to do this so the Ungroup option can be used.
Select the group of elements and click the ‘Ungroup’ option on the top menu. This will return them to separate elements that you can move around and change as required. But remember, once you move them, their layouts will be gone.
Tips for using grouped elements
Moving grouped elements around and retaining a layout is the most common reason people group things but there are other uses for a group of elements and things you can do. A few examples include:
- Duplicate a group – if you are making something like a checklist, grouping a text box and a square box then duplicating it will let you create a list very quickly
- Rotating the group – you can change the angle of the group which is great if you have something like curved text but decide you don’t like where the words sit
- Easily resize the group – you can use the corner button to make the whole group bigger or smaller while the ratio of elements is retained
- Link the whole group – you can also use the Canva link facility to add a link to all of the elements which would be clickable in a PDF
- Quick delete the group – want to get rid of a whole group of elements quickly? Then select them as a group and hit delete
Make Canva easier with grouping
Learning to group elements in Canva is one of those Canva hacks you’ll find that you use a lot. From moving things around to resizing a set of elements, it is a useful feature to know and can save a lot of time making your designs. If you wanna know more ways your can save time in Canva, check out these other Canva Tutorials and Canva shortcuts.
