Creating the perfect presentation design is a challenge that speakers often aim to achieve, only to find themselves lacking graphic design knowledge. Although high-tier options like Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator help users worldwide to put their ideas into pixels, the reality is they are not user-friendly interfaces for people outside the graphic design industry, namely business professionals, marketers, and educators. Hence, the need to find an alternative for making powerful graphics to use in our presentations – and here’s where Canva comes into the picture.
This web-based graphic design tool has quickly become the preferred choice of teachers, social media influencers, and small business owners due to its free-tier plans and pro plans at a convenient subscription-based fee.
In this article, we will see how to use Canva presentation in PowerPoint and how to export Canva to PPT, to create visually appealing presentations.
Table of Contents
- Canva vs. Microsoft PowerPoint: Pros and Cons for Presenters
- Designing with Canva
- How to Export a Canva Presentation to PowerPoint
- How to Use Canva-made Graphics in PowerPoint
- FAQs
- Final Words
Canva vs. Microsoft PowerPoint: Pros and Cons for Presenters
Although presenters often see Canva as an alternative to PowerPoint, the reality is that they differ in one single aspect: Canva is a graphic design tool, whereas PowerPoint is a presentation design software. Some of the tools available in PowerPoint are not there in Canva, and vice versa.
Going into more technical aspects, here are the Pros and Cons of working with either software as a presenter.
Pros of Canva as a Presentation Tool
User-Friendly Interface
Canva’s drag-and-drop feature makes it easy for non-designers to create presentations by using its library of shapes, graphics, text styles, and other resources.
Wide Range of Templates
It offers a vast library of Canva templates, which can be easily customized in their online editor, saving time on design. There’s a con associated with this point, which we shall discuss later.
AI Tools
Magic Studio for Canva was released mid-Q3 this year with the idea of powering designs with AI tools. This tool is available in Canva search features and in the editor at the bottom right corner, which features the list options:
- AI text generation
- Suggested graphics to match your design
- Suggested photos to match your design
Collaboration Feature
Allows multiple users to simultaneously work on the same presentation, which is great for small team projects. Compared with PowerPoint, it does not require all users to be Premium to collaborate online.
Web-Based Platform
Being an online platform, it allows users to work from any device with Internet access without needing software installation. This particularly helps users with legacy computers who cannot install current versions of Microsoft Office.
Integrated Stock Library
Provides access to a broad selection of stock photos, illustrations, and icons within the platform. Just like with the Canva templates, there’s also a con to this point.
Customization Options
Users can upload images and fonts, enabling brand consistency across presentations. Note: The upload fonts feature is only available for Canva Pro users.
Photo Editing and Animation Features
Canva lets users tweak their graphics with simple-to-use controls. These options help us to adjust opacity, apply photo filters, add animation effects, add bevels and shadows, and more.
Cross-Platform Compatibility
Can export presentations to various formats (as a PDF document, as a video presentation in MP4 format, or even as images), making them viewable on different devices and platforms. The export options allow us to post directly into social media, create printables, post to the web, etc. While some export formats require an upgrade to a Canva Pro subscription (like the ability to export to SVG format), the basic export features are enough for simple presentations and beginners.
Cons of Canva as a Presentation Tool
Limited Offline Functionality
Requires an internet connection for full functionality, which can be a limitation in areas with poor connectivity, for business people working on an airline flight, while using Airplane mode, or for people traveling in other zones without Internet access.
Fewer Animation and Transition Options
Unlike PowerPoint, the available options for animations and transitions are limited. Users can find this reiterative, which may be unappealing to using these effects in our presentations.
Premium Content
Although the Canva library is extensive in terms of assets, the reality is that most of these elements are only available for premium users. This applies to templates, shapes, images (mostly), and exporting options. Resizing the graphics you create in Canva to repurpose your design is only available to premium users.
Template Overuse
Popular templates can be overused, making presentations look similar to many others. This is of particular interest to business professionals, as people tend to easily associate some designs as being made with Canva.
Design Decisions
Unlike using a PowerPoint template, you have to work your way with Canva content, as the PPT templates tend to be quite generic and do not offer tools for data representation. Consequently, you have to know how and where to introduce those elements on your own rather than working with a presentation template that already assigned the space for such graphics.
Lack of Advanced Multimedia Integration
Integrating complex multimedia elements like videos is not as seamless as in some desktop applications. You won’t find options to link to source elements; you need to upload the content to your personal Canva library and manually add the resource to the slide. Presenters can also lose third-party integrations via plugins for some multimedia resources.
Pros of PowerPoint as a Presentation Tool
Widespread Use and Familiarity
PowerPoint is the leading market tool for presentations, making most audiences and presenters are familiar with it at a basic operational level. This can help us to outsource technical issues quickly rather than aiming to use web-based interfaces to share Canva-created content.
Offline Access
PowerPoint can be used offline, which is ideal for people traveling, areas where the Internet connection is unreliable, or simply because we want to focus on creating the slides rather than facing distractions via the Internet.
Integration with Other Microsoft Office Tools
Seamlessly integrates with other Microsoft products like Excel and Word, making it easy to import data and documents. This is ideal for creating complex graphics for data representation, where the content can be synced, importing databases, working with Gantt Charts in software like Microsoft Project, and more.
Also, Microsoft PowerPoint has the same text editing capabilities as Microsoft Word – a striking contrast with Canva’s limited features.
Templates and Design Options
This is PowerPoint’s forte: the capability of using third-party presentation templates, like the ones provided by SlideModel. Users can buy pre-designed slide decks from professional vendors and ease the need to make design-related decisions. On top of that, Microsoft already includes some basic templates with its 365 subscription.
Advanced Features
Offers a broad range of features, including detailed animations and transitions, which can enhance presentations. For example, the ability to work with SVG graphics allows presentation designers to make pixel-perfect presentations without losing image quality. This is available to all users, unlike Canva, which requires a subscription to unlock certain elements.
Multimedia Capabilities
Supports embedding of various multimedia elements like audio, video, and images directly into presentations. You can use hyperlinks to embed content or work with third-party plugins for specific tasks.
Extensive Support and Resources
As a long-established tool, users can find tutorials everywhere, support communities, and additional resources available online.
Cons of PowerPoint for Presenters
Complexity
Some features can be complex to use, and the interface may be overwhelming for new users. In particular, this is linked to editing PowerPoint Shapes and graphs, working with Slide Master, applying advanced animation effects and so on.
Cost
Unlike Canva or Google Slides, PowerPoint requires purchasing Office 365 or a standalone license.
Heavy Files
PowerPoint files, especially those with multimedia content, can become large and difficult to share via email. As a side effect, those heavy files can be complicated to handle in computers that lack sufficient RAM and processing power. Moreover, they require significant free disk space on your PC.
Time-Consuming
Creating a high-quality presentation with custom animations and graphics can be time-consuming. That’s the reason why we highly recommend users work their way with PowerPoint templates, and mix and match designs to create a unique slide deck.
Learning Curve
Users need to invest time in learning the software to fully utilize its advanced features. This applies to both acquiring the knowledge and practicing the skills you learned. And still, for some users, it feels frustrating not to achieve results relatively quickly.
Designing with Canva
In this section, we will learn how to use Canva to create graphics for a product presentation. The idea is to create placeholder graphics containing images of a product; then, we will export that content to continue creating our presentation in PowerPoint.
After creating our Canva account, we find ourselves at the Home screen. Go to Templates, and you will see something similar to this UI.
We can go straight to the Presentations (16:9) option or use the search bar to locate the template we want. In this case, we will opt for that scenario and search “Product.”
The images that show a little crown at the low right corner are premium templates, which means we cannot use them with a free account. We will pick a template that fits the needs of our presentation by clicking over it. At the contextual window that opens, select Customize this template.
The Canva builder may take a bit to load, especially if your internet connection is slow. You will find yourself with a window like this one, opened at the Design tab, which offers alternatives for other templates similar to the one you chose.
The Styles tab allows us to quickly change the layout, altering color themes and fonts. Sometimes, that can suit our needs immediately; sometimes, it requires extra work to customize to our preferences.
We can click on any element in this design and customize its content. Depending on the element type, the options are available for us. For this presentation, we will change the text and images, and alter font color at the button to make it stand out.
Next, it’s time to replace the images. We can drag and drop the image into Canva, or we can go to the Uploads button and add the content from there.
In this case, we’re using DALL-E-generated images for this product presentation, you can also use illustrations, photos, videos, or Midjourney illustrations. Once the images are uploaded, drag and drop them to replace the images in the placeholder areas. To complete this design, we removed the shape that came with the template – you can add a new shape by going to Elements > Graphics.
How to Export a Canva Presentation to PowerPoint
Learning how to use Canva for PowerPoint is pretty straightforward. Download your Canva design as a PowerPoint presentation, which you can do by accessing your design and going to the top-right corner to locate the button Share. Click on it, and then click on Download.
Under File Type, we will select PPTX, as it’s PowerPoint’s native format. Click on Download, and wait for the process of downloading the file to be completed. Depending on the graphic assets included, it can take a while.
At this point, don’t be surprised if you’ll be prompted to upgrade your Canva plan (if you don’t have a premium account). The reason is that Canva will charge you for exporting what they call premium graphics, and since most of the Canva presentation templates use premium graphics, this will be a limitation when exporting your Canva slides to PowerPoint.
A simple workaround is removing the premium graphics before exporting from Canva to PowerPoint. Although, take in mind this may affect the overall design of your presentation.
As you can see below, the PowerPoint file is entirely editable. Something to consider is that unless you have the font installed on your computer, PowerPoint will reassign to a generic font.
How to Use Canva-made Graphics in PowerPoint
Remember the design we created before? Well, it’s time to use that image as part of a marketing deck presentation, which will represent a social media post to be used by the marketing team to promote the brand.
The first step is to download the design we created as PNG. We can close Canva after that.
We opened our PPT template, which is the Annual Marketing Plan PowerPoint Template, and customized the PowerPoint theme colors. Go to Insert > Pictures > This Device.
Select the image we created in Canva and upload it here. We will add some image shadow effects via Shape Format, and a textbox below that describes what the image is about.
And that’s how easily we can use graphics from Canva in our PowerPoint presentations. Remember, it’s best to work with PNG images rather than JPG to reduce file size and preserve image quality.
FAQs
You can invite others to collaborate on your design by sharing a link to the editable design or by adding them via email as team members on your Canva account.
Canva uses standard cloud storage security measures to protect your data, but like any online platform, it’s important to use a strong password and follow good security practices.
There are two methods for this. You can upload a PPT template into Canva via the Canva Homepage by clicking on Projects, and then go to the Uploads folder. Drag and drop or click on Upload, as we’ve seen before. Once imported, you must click on that file to open it in the Canva editor.
The second method is on the editor: go to the Uploads button and upload your PPT file as if it were an image or another media asset.
Yes, you can use SlideModel presentation templates in Canva. As a SlideModel subscriber, you can download .pptx files to import into Canva presentations. This way, you can enjoy the creative slide templates and graphics provided by SlideModel in your Canva presentations
Unfortunately, no, as Canva doesn’t have the same toolset to enable editing functions. That also applies to changing color, so we highly recommend you work with a final PPT file before switching to Canva.
Objects like charts, SmartArt, 3D objects, and WordArt aren’t supported in Canva and won’t be rendered if you upload a slide that contains them.
Yes, all users can download Canva presentations to PPTX format. In case the original Canva design isn’t a presentation file, like a banner or social media post, you won’t be able to resize for that output unless you have a premium account.
Yes, the file must be smaller than 70 MB, and you can import up to 300 slides.
Final Words
Canva and PowerPoint can collaborate as complementary tools to help presenters overcome the limitations of each individual tool. It takes a while to create your desired workflow, but once that’s accomplished, you can elevate the quality of your PowerPoint or Google Slides presentations with Canva.
We don’t advise using Canva as an alternative to PowerPoint as the current state-of-the-art indicates it won’t support data representation or other PowerPoint stellar tools that make part of most PPT templates. For more information, check our article about Canva alternatives and how to convert Canva to Google Slides.
