Inside the Editor — Tools, Tabs & Shortcuts
A tour of the Canvas Design Studio editor — the seven studio tabs, contextual toolbar, layers, groups, smart guides, keyboard shortcuts, and mobile gestures.
The editor is the heart of the app — the same canvas powers your template authoring and your customers' designing, just with different permissions. Here's everything in it.
Have a play first#
Try the editor
This is the feeling your customers get — type, style, done.
Live preview — updates as you type
The seven studio tabs#
The left sidebar (bottom tab bar on mobile) is organised into seven tabs. Any of them can be hidden per template — or globally in Settings — so customers only see what they need:
| Tab | What it does |
|---|---|
| Designs | The template picker — starter templates, your saved templates |
| Text | Add and style text — fonts, size, weight, alignment, curved text |
| Photos | Built-in Unsplash stock photo search (Starter plan and above) |
| Graphics | 2,000+ icons in outline and filled weights, plus a vector QR code generator |
| Shapes | Rectangles, circles, ovals, rounded squares and custom paths |
| Uploads | Customer image uploads — PNG, JPG, WebP, SVG |
| Layers | The layer stack — select, reorder, lock, rename, show/hide |
The contextual toolbar#
Select anything on the canvas and a properties toolbar appears with controls for that object type:
- Text — font family, size, weight, italic, underline, letter spacing, line height, alignment, colour, vertical anchor, curved text, and the ✨ Effects panel (nine effects)
- Images — crop, brightness/contrast, Threshold / Grayscale / Invert filters, and one-click Remove background (details)
- Shapes — fill, stroke colour and width, opacity, and text-on-shape (curve text along the path)
- Everything — arrange (bring forward / send back), align (horizontal & vertical), lock, duplicate, delete
Groups and multi-select#
Select several objects to group them (⌘G), move them as one, and drill in with a double-click to edit children — a breadcrumb shows where you are, with an "Exit group" chip to step back out. Ungroup with ⇧⌘G.
Precision tools#
- Smart guides — objects snap to each other's edges and centres, and to the canvas centre lines
- Print guides — bleed, trim, and safe-zone overlays drawn live on the canvas (toggleable per template); see Production Files & Preflight
- Zoom & pan — scroll wheel or pinch to zoom; space-drag or two-finger drag to pan
- Undo/redo — unlimited history via the header buttons or ⌘Z / ⌘⇧Z
Keyboard shortcuts#
| Shortcut | Action |
|---|---|
⌘A | Select all |
⌘C / ⌘V | Copy / paste |
⌘D | Duplicate |
⌘G / ⇧⌘G | Group / ungroup |
⌘Z / ⌘⇧Z | Undo / redo |
Delete | Delete selection |
Ctrl+[ / Ctrl+] | Send back / bring forward |
| Arrow keys | Nudge 1px (Shift = 10px) |
| Space + drag | Pan the canvas |
On mobile#
The editor is genuinely touch-first, not a shrunken desktop app:
- Pinch to zoom, two-finger drag to pan
- Tap to select; double-tap to edit text or enter a group
- A slim action bar appears above the tab bar on selection — Edit, Font, Size, Colour, Alignment, Duplicate, Lock, Arrange, Group, Delete — with sheets you can swipe down to dismiss
Most personalised-product purchases happen on phones. Test your templates on a phone before launch — the Form and Inline customer modes are especially strong on small screens.
Related guides#
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