How to Add Gridlines in Canva [An Easy 2024 Guide]

| | March 20, 2024

Adding gridlines in Canva can be a helpful tool when designing and aligning elements on your canvas. 

Gridlines provide a visual aid to ensure that your design elements in social media graphics, banners, infographics, presentations, or any other visual content in Canva are properly aligned and spaced.

In this tutorial, you'll learn step-by-step how to add gridlines in Canva to perfectly align your design elements.

Let's get started.

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How to Add Gridlines in Canva

How to Add Gridlines in Canva

Below I have mentioned step-by-step all the process to add gridlines to your Canva designs.

Step 1: Accessing Your Canva Account

First, you need to login to your account in Canva. If you don't have an account, you can create a free account from here - Visit Canva.

After successful login, you would be taken to the Canva dashboard. From here, we will create a new design.

To create a new design, click on Create a design button located at the top right of the dashboard.

Now, Canva will suggest some designs that you may want to create, or you can search for your design by entering your search term in the search bar.

Or, if you want to create a create a design of some specific dimension, you can click on Custom size

For the sake of this tutorial, I have chosen Instagram Post (Square) as shown below.

Canva Instagram Post Design

Step 2: Selecting a Template

After selecting a design (Instagram Post), you will taken to the Canva editor where you will get access to all the design features Canva offers.

Currently we have a blank Instagram Post design at the moment. To apply a design to this, you may select a pre-made templates from the left.

Select a template that you like and it will automatically be applied to your design.

For example, I am going to select the design as shown in the below screenshot.

Design Instagram Post Canva

In the below screenshot, you can see that the selected template has been applied to my design.

Instagram Design Template

In the next step, we will see how to add gridlines so that we could align and organize your designs with precision.

Step 3: Adding Gridlines in Canva Design

Gridlines in Canva can serve as a visual guide to ensure that your elements are positioned accurately.

To enable it to your design, click on File >> View Settings >> Show rulers and guides.

Show Rulers and Guides

As you click on Show rules and guides, you'll observe that a ruler has been added to the top and left of your design. See the below screenshot.

Adding Rulers in Canva

Now, when you drag the ruler with your mouse and release it on your design, gridline will be added to your Canva design.

In the below example, you can see that I have added gridlines in Canva by dragging the ruler from the both the top and left of the design.

Adding Gridlines in Canva

These gridlines will help you position your text, images, icons, and gifs accurately.

This is how you can add gridlines and rulers in your Canva designs.

Tip: To remove a gridline from your design, just drag a gridline outside the design area and release the mouse. Gridline will be removed. Do this for all the gridlines and there will be no gridlines on your design.

Step 4: Adding Guides in Canva Design

Just like we added gridlines to our design, we can also add pre-defined guides as well as custom guides to our design.

To add a guide, go to File >> View settings >> Add guides.

Adding Guides in Canva

As you click on Add guides in the previous step, Canva will offer these pre-defined guides - 12 columns, 3 columns, and 3x3 grid. You can also select custom to add the number of rows and columns that you want in your design.

In the below example, you can see that I have selected and added the 3x3 grid guide to my design.

Add Guides to Canva Design

Guides will help you lay out elements in your designs the way you want.

Wrapping Up

Gridlines and guides can be particularly useful for creating designs that require precise alignment, such as infographics, presentations, and social media posts. 

Whether you're a professional designer or a beginner, utilizing gridlines in Canva can greatly improve the overall look and feel of your designs.

I hope this tutorial has helped you learn how to add gridlines in Canva. If you've liked this tutorial, please share it with your friends on social media.

For more useful resources and tips, please checkout the below mentioned blog articles.

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Deepak Choudhary

Deepak Choudhary is the founder of Technicalwall.com. He is a Blogger and an Affiliate Marketing Expert. He publishes useful articles for newbie bloggers related to the following topics - Affiliate Marketing, Email Marketing, Software Reviews, Software Tutorials, Blogging, WordPress, SEO, Passive Income, and more.