Changing the orientation of your Canva designs can dramatically transform your visual content and better align your projects with the needs of your audience. Whether using landscape for presentations or utilising square formats for social media, adjusting the dimensions of your design offers a versatile way to achieve the ideal layout. This approach not only enhances the aesthetic appeal of the media, it also increases user engagement, ensuring your designs make a lasting first impression.

Understanding the impact of page orientation is essential, as research shows that 94% of first impressions of the brands are because of the design. With Canva, designers can easily tailor their projects—using portrait layouts for mobile content like Instagram stories, landscape for presentations and YouTube thumbnails, and square for versatile social media posts—to suit your diverse design needs. Optimise your designs using the power of orientation and drive brand success today.

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Method 1: Using Resize & Magic Switch (Canva Pro Users)

If you have a Canva Pro subscription, changing the page orientation is fast and straightforward.

Step 1: Open Your Design

Log into your Canva account and open the design you wish to modify. If you're starting from scratch, select any template to begin.

Step 2: Access the Resize Feature

Look for the "Resize" or "Magic Switch" option in the top left corner of your screen. In newer versions of Canva, this feature is called "Magic Switch," which replaced the older resizing tool.

Step 3: Select Custom Dimensions

After clicking on Resize/Magic Switch, you'll see several options:

• Select a predefined size (such as A4 Landscape or 1920 x 1080)
• Enter custom dimensions manually
• Choose from category options that might suit your needs

For landscape orientation, ensure the width value is greater than the height (e.g., 11 x 8.5 inches), while for portrait, the opposite.

Step 4: Apply the Resize

Click on "Continue" or "Apply." You'll typically have two options:

• Resize this design: Changes your current design to the new dimensions
• Copy & resize: Creates a new version with the new orientation while keeping your original intact

Step 5: Adjust Your Design Elements

After resizing, review how your elements are positioned in the new orientation. You may need to resize or reposition text, images, and graphics to fit properly in the new layout.

Method 2: Manual Orientation Change (Free Canva Users)

If you're using the free version of Canva, you will need to take a slightly different approach since you won't have access to the Magic Switch feature.

Step 1: Create a New Design with Desired Orientation

Start by opening Canva and creating a new design. Click on "Custom size" and enter the dimensions for your desired orientation:

• For landscape: Make the width larger than the height
• For portrait: Make the height larger than the width
• For square: Use equal values for both dimensions

Step 2: Copy Elements from Original Design

Go back to your original design and select all the elements you want to transfer. You can select multiple elements by holding Shift while clicking each one or by dragging a selection box around them. Copy these elements (Ctrl+C or Command+C).

Step 3: Paste Into New Design

Switch to your newly created design with the correct orientation and paste the copied elements (Ctrl+V or Command+V). You'll need to reposition and potentially resize the elements to fit the new canvas dimensions.

Step 4: Adjust and Refine

Take time to properly arrange your design elements in the new orientation. This may involve:

• Resizing text boxes
• Repositioning images
• Adjusting spacing between elements
• Possibly changing font sizes to maintain readability

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Working with Multiple Page Orientations

If you're creating a multi-page document like a presentation, you might want different orientations for different slides or pages.

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For Canva Pro Users:

You can use the Resize feature on individual pages by:

1. Selecting the specific page in the page navigator
2. Using the Resize tool and applying changes only to the selected page
3. Repeating for any other pages that need different orientations

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For Free Canva Users:

You'll need to create separate designs for each orientation and then download and combine them outside of Canva. Alternatively, you can create separate pages within one design, each with its own arrangement of elements for different orientations within the same canvas size.

Tips for Planning Your Design Orientation

To avoid the hassle of changing orientation later, consider these tips:

• Know your requirements before starting: Consider where and how your design will be used before selecting a template
• Use Canva's Whiteboard feature: This provides more flexibility for organizing elements before committing to a specific template
• Create custom-size templates: Setting up your exact dimensions before adding design elements can save time

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Conclusion

Changing page orientation in Canva—whether from portrait to landscape or vice versa—requires either using the Resize/Magic Switch feature (for Pro users) or creating a new design with the desired dimensions (for free users). While Canva Pro offers more seamless orientation changes, free users can still achieve the same results with a bit more manual work.

Remember that the right orientation can significantly impact how your audience receives your design, so choose wisely based on your content purpose and distribution channels. With these steps and tips, you'll be able to create perfectly oriented designs for any project in Canva.

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