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How to make a hyperlinked planner in Canva

Design your planner in Canva, download a PDF, then add tabs that link on every page. Includes a Keynote version and what to check before you sell.

3 min read

Canva is a comfortable place to design planner pages, but linking hundreds of tabs inside Canva is slow. The quicker route is to design everything in Canva, download one PDF, and add the links afterwards. This guide covers both halves, plus a Keynote version.

What you'll need

  • Canva. The free plan can download PDFs; some elements and templates need Canva Pro.
  • A page size for your device. For iPad portrait, a custom size of 768 × 1024 px (3:4) matches our iPad planners; for landscape, 1024 × 768 px.
  • A page list. Write down every page in order: cover, contents, year, months, weeks and any sections. You'll need the page numbers later.

Step 1: Plan the page order

Number the pages before you design. For example: page 1 cover, page 2 contents, page 3 year overview, pages 4–15 the twelve months, then the weeks. Keep this list; it's what every tab will point to.

Step 2: Design one page with the tabs

Make a single page with your tab column, usually along the right edge: twelve month tabs of equal height, plus any section tabs. Use shapes with text. The tabs must sit in exactly the same place on every page, so lock or group them once they're right.

Step 3: Build the rest of the pages

Duplicate that page for every page in your list, then design each page's content around the tabs. Don't move or resize the tabs on any page.

Step 4: Download a PDF

Choose Share > Download and pick PDF Standard (smaller file) or PDF Print (larger, sharper). Leave Flatten PDF off. Check the page count matches your list. If the file is over 60 MB, PDF Standard usually brings it down.

  1. Upload the PDF to the hyperlink tool.
  2. Choose Tab strip and draw one box around the whole month column.
  3. Enter 12 tabs and the page each month opens, in order, for example 4 to 15.
  4. Repeat for any section tabs.
  5. Choose Single link for the contents page entries and buttons like Home, and set each to one page, every page or a range.
  6. Preview with the watermark, tap through on your tablet, then download.

Downloading costs $7 per file, or it's unlimited on the Seller plan.

You can. Select text or an element, choose Link, and pick a page under Pages of this document. It works well for a short document. For a planner, every tab needs linking on every page, one element at a time, and you'd have to redo links if pages move. That's the job the tab strip does for you.

Keynote suits planners because each slide is a page. The steps are the same idea:

  1. Set a custom slide size in the Document settings, such as 768 × 1024 for iPad portrait.
  2. Design a master slide with your tabs, then duplicate it for every page.
  3. Either link in Keynote (select a shape or text, add a link and choose Slide as the destination), or skip that and link afterwards with the hyperlink tool.
  4. Export with File > Export To > PDF, then test the links on your tablet.

Before you sell a Canva-made planner

  • Check Canva's licence for any templates, photos, fonts and elements you used. It decides what you may sell, not us.
  • Linking for sale needs the Seller plan. Files linked with a single credit are for personal use; on the Seller plan, linking is unlimited and covered by the commercial licence.
  • Test on the apps your buyers use, at least GoodNotes and one Android app, and say in your listing which you've tested.

Rather not design from scratch? Our planner builder makes a complete hyperlinked planner from settings you choose.

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