How to Add a Text Box in Canva for Easy Awesome Designs

Need to know how to add a text box in Canva?

It’s one of the simplest and most important design features.

While plain photos can be great, we often need text with them to get the most from them.

The good news is that it’s very easy to add a text box in Canva. And there are lots of features to make that text box exactly what you need.

Ready to start adding text?

How to add a text box in Canva

There are two simple ways to add a text box in Canva.

The first is to go to the side menu and select the ‘Text’ option.

If you have Canva Pro and have uploaded your brand fonts, these will show at the top of the menu. Same with any fonts you have imported into Canva to use in your designs.

Otherwise, it will start with your recently used fonts, or font combinations that are pre-designed in Canva.

Select the one you want, and it will be added to the design canvas.

Then you can adjust it as you like including making it bigger, moving it, or changing the color.

These controls are all along the top menu.

You can style the type too! Change the font, the alignment, and add bold or italic if the font has this option.

→ Super fast method to add text boxes in Canva

The other way to add a text box is with keyboard shortcuts.

Simply hit ‘T’ while you have highlighted the canvas and a text box will appear.

If there’s already one on the canvas, it will appear with the same formatting.

Adding a font combination

Canva comes with a lot of options in fonts that are built in. And with them are what’s known as font combinations.

These are like templates, but for pairs of fonts.

They can even come with effects added to them to make it easy to create something eye catching.

This example comes with the fonts, colors, and effects already built into it.

The two text boxes are grouped together, but you can ungroup them if you want to make changes.

Then you can change the words while keeping the formatting. Or you can use the color picker to change the color.

You could change the effect too. In this example, a shadow is applied with a darker turquoise shade.

You could alter this to something else, like a Splice effect to create something different. Or change the color of the effect.

Some of the font combinations are also great if you want to make quotes and add your own background elements.

This combination of fonts makes it easy to add a quote and an attribution in two coordinating fonts, then use something like a gradient color behind it.

Or add a texture background with a simple square shape on top to make the quote easy to read.

Just use the search bar to find different elements or photos that work well. The font combinations simply mean you don’t need to worry about pairing your fonts!

Font pairs in Styles

Another place you can find help with font pairs to add to your text boxes is in Styles.

Click this on the menu, then click the ‘Fonts’ option at the top far right.

Now you’ll see a whole range of font pairings already selected by Canva.

If you want to apply them to the text boxes you have on your design, simply click the one you want.

Here I used the same quote but switched to Cormorant Garamond Me as the main font and Cormorant Garamond Medium Italic as the attribution.

Just by clicking the button with the font pair showing on it!

Canva Pro has an extended font library, but even the free version has a good range of fonts to use in your designs.

Adding text effects

The other big way you can personalize text boxes is with Effects. We touched on them earlier, but it’s worth taking a moment to learn a little more about them.

They are one of the newer features and are available on all accounts, whether you have Canva Pro or Canva’s free version. They let you add different effects to a whole text box to make it more unique and interesting.

Currently, there are the following Effects to add to text:

• Shadow
• Lift
• Hollow
• Splice
• Echo
• Glitch
• Neon

There’s also the option to make curved text, or even to have words form a complete circle, all in the same panel.

You can apply the effect and then customize it to get the exact look you want.

Here I’ve added the Splice and let the color default to a grey that contrasts with the black.

Then I could move the direction of the splice and how much the offset is. Here I’ve changed the direction to 45 from -45 and the offset to 0.

This makes the two sets of text line up and creates a stylish outlined font.

You can also increase or decrease the thickness of the outline. Here I put it up to the maximum 100.

You can’t use more than one effect from the ‘Style’ group on a single text box.

But you can use a Style effect and add the Curve to it. Here I have the Shadow effect and a Curve to the word ‘birthday’.

Be sure to read my article on how to curve text in Canva for details.

When your text is tweaked to perfection, you can then add free or premium elements to your design, or just add an image background or a solid color.

Making the most of text boxes

While there are lots of advanced tools in Canva, the text box may be one of the most basic. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t a powerful creative tool and a crucial part of making designs.

The addition of the text effects lets you do more with your text and create new styles of designs.

Or just make something simple like a quote graphic or a header to use in emails using professional font pairings.

How can you use different text boxes in your designs?

Disclosure: If you purchase a plan, I may earn a commission, at no cost to you.

Want more tutorials?

Learn keyboard shortcuts and more in my ultimate guide on how to use Canva!