How to Create Editable Canva Documents with ChatGPT

Marketers and designers are some of the busiest people in the media landscape. Not only do they have to manage their regular monthly workflows, they also have to manage multiple requests per month from different stakeholders, including their supervisors, editors, publishers and members of their sales team. It seems like there’s never a shortage of products, only a shortage of time.

Now Canva has partnered with ChatGPT to help reclaim some of that time. I’ve used this tool several times, and I can tell you that while creating your next promotional piece, social media ad, or one-pager could be just a prompt away, it might take a few iterations to get there. In this tutorial, I’ll show you how to do it, and go over some bumps I experienced along the way.

The Power of ChatGPT’s Custom GPTs

If you’re a ChatGPT user, more than likely when the screen loads, you see the prompt bar, input your prompt or ask your question, and begin your dialogue. It’s very easy to overlook the small but powerful menu on the left-hand side of the screen.

Click Explore and you’ll unlock the world of custom GPTs. Custom GPTs utilize the latest ChatGPT model, but they’ve been trained on additional data, and knowledge bases to help them accomplish specific tasks. While you don’t need the paid version of ChatGPT to use custom GPTs, I recommend it because custom GPTs like Canva’s that generate images tend to use more tokens than a standard text chat.

Be a Little More Broad with Canva’s Custom GPT

Prompt engineering is the practice of creating clear and precise set of instructions that you’ll then input into an LLM (large language model). The more precise the data you input, the higher likelihood that you’ll get a high-quality response.

That’s normally what I recommend when working with an LLM, but for some reason, more specific instructions with this GPT seem to lead to mixed results. That said, when working with Canva’s custom GPT, I recommend being a little more general instead of giving a lot of details, keeping in mind that you can make edits to the template once it’s been imported into Canva.

Here’s the prompt I used for this exercise:

“Create a visually compelling social media post targeting frustrated marketers. The main image should feature a marketer who looks overwhelmed or burnt out. The headline reads: “Need Leads?” and the client’s URL http://www.livewiremts.com appears clearly at the bottom. The design should suggest that LiveWire’s lead gen programs offer a solution to that frustration.”

Select a Template From the ChatGPT-Generated Options

Before it begins creating template options, ChatGPT will then ask for permission to talk to any necessary plugins required to perform the action. This is the same for any custom GPT you might use. Click Confirm.

Depending on your prompt, ChatGPT may begin designing the output right away or request more information. If it’s the latter, after you input the necessary information, it will present you with a number of templates that might work for your post.

Select the template with the style that works best for you, and it will open a fully editable version of the document in Canva.

Give It a Light Edit and You’re Done!

Once your final image is created, you can download it in whatever format you need, depending on your Canva license restrictions. In this case, it’s a social media ad that can be posted directly to your channels.

A Little Clunky, but Definitely a Time-Saver

I’ve used this tool several times, and I can tell you it’s not a perfect science. The GPT works best with broad direction, and if you don’t get the output you expect the first time, you may need to adjust your prompt and start a new chat. The advantage here is you don’t have to start a design from scratch. Even if the first result misses the mark, the tool gives you a starting point that’s easy to adjust, which is much better than starting with a blank page.

Canva’s custom GPT, like most generative AI tools, is still evolving. Its accuracy will only improve over time. It’s worth exploring, especially if it can save you some time and make the creative process a little more enjoyable. Give it a shot!