How to create a fillable PDF workbook in Canva

Whether you want to make a workbook for an online workshop, a welcome guide for clients, a planner, a lead magnet, or any other kind of digital workbook or fillable worksheet, read on for the step-by-step on how to create a fillable PDF in Canva.

Don’t want to start from scratch? Get one of my E-book/Workbook Templates to get you started quickly! They’re available in US Letter as well as A4 size.

How to design your workbook in Canva

Create a new design in Canva. It can be any size you like, although common sizes are US Letter or A4 (international). I use A4 Portrait size in the screenshots below.

How do you create a digital workbook from a template?

My E-book/Workbook Templates have 89 pages including cover page designs, section/chapter title page layouts, and A LOT of different types of content page layouts, such as roadmaps, challenges, and planners, and of course, worksheet pages.

Choose from multiple page variations, duplicate and rearrange pages to create endless ebook and workbook layouts.

Designing the title page for your interactive PDF workbook, planner or guide

Click Photos on the left-hand side and choose a photo to use as the background image for your cover page.

Alternatively, you can upload your own photos or use photos from your Canva Brand Kit if you’ve set that up to have photos.

Click and drag the photo over the page, then release your mouse button when it looks like it covers the entire page.

If you dropped the photo onto the page but it’s not filling the entire page, you can click a corner and drag to resize it to fill the entire page.

Depending on the photo, you may want to add a block where you can add text. To do so, click Elements on the left-hand side, select Shapes, and select a square or another shape you want to use for this. You can use a color or use a white block that you make slightly transparent.

Click Text on the left-hand side and add your title. You can also add your name, program or course name, and any other information you want to add on your title page.

Need a professionally designed workbook? Check out my Ebook & Workbook Design Services.

Designing a worksheet for your editable PDF workbook, planner or guide

Click Text on the left-hand side and add a heading, subheading, or body text, or pick from one of the text templates Canva provides. Change the font and color to make it fit your brand. Add some text to introduce your worksheet and explain everything someone needs to know before filling it out.

Then, add the visuals for your fields. Add the labels or questions for the fields the same way you add any other text. Add the field background by using shapes from the Elements menu in Canva. You can also use a shape as a background for a checklist, and use small boxes for the checklist itself.

How to add a hyperlink to your Canva ebook or workbook

If you have links you want to add to your content, you can select the text you want to add a link to, and then click the Link icon, paste in the URL for the link you want to add and click Done to add the link to the content. It will automatically underline the linked text, but you can also change the styling of the text to a different color, bold, or anything else to make the linked text stand out.

Download your PDF from Canva

When you’re done designing your worksheet, download by click the Share button in the top right corner of Canva, then click Download. Download it as a PDF. If you’ve added any links to your ebook, make sure to download it as PDF Standard.

How to add fillable fields to your PDF workbook or worksheet and make your PDF interactive

Open the free online PDF editor from PDFescape. Select Upload PDF to PDFescape and upload the PDF you just created and downloaded from Canva. At the top left, you can choose to insert a Form Field. You can choose from these types:

Text – for just one line of text, such as name or email address, or a paragraph of text, like a comment box. See below for how to create a paragraph or multi-line text field.

Checkbox – For a “Yes, I agree” checkbox, or, of course, a checklist.

Radiobutton – For a list of choices where only one choice can be made, like Yes/No.

Dropdown – For a list of choices where only one choice can be made. The list is only visible when it’s opened by clicking the arrow. Useful for a large list of choices, such as countries or U.S. states.

Listbox – Similar to a dropdown, but shows more options at once and allows for multiple options to be selected.

Reset button – clears input from all the fields

Submit button – if you want the form to be sent somewhere

Click and drag over the fields you designed in Canva to create the fillable fields and checkboxes.

If you make a mistake, you can change the size of the fillable fields by first clicking the Edit button (or pencil, if there’s no text for these buttons on your screen size) at the top.

Then click the field you need to edit, and an outline with dots will appear. Click and drag one of the dots to change the size of the field.

If you want to create a field for a paragraph of text, you’ll need to add a regular text field first. Then, in Edit mode, click the wrench icon.

Then, in the field settings, select the checkbox for multi-line and click OK.

If you need to delete a field, you can also do this in Edit mode. Simply click the field you need to delete to select it and click the trash can at the top.

Finally, click the purple arrow icon to save & download your fillable PDF.

Need a professionally designed interactive PDF? Hire me for Ebook & Workbook Design and let’s create something stunning together.

Open the PDF you downloaded, check that your interactive workbook is working as expected, go back and make changes if needed, then upload it to your website, your course platform, or if you’re creating an opt-in freebie, your mailing list provider.

Best practices for designing fillable PDF forms

Write & Edit your text ahead of time, so it’s done and ready to go when you start designing

Before you start designing, I recommend you write the text for your workbook or worksheet in Google Docs or something similar, the design process will go much faster if your text is already done and ready to go.

Make sure to include clear instructions for the parts where you’ll be adding form fields to your PDF. Whether they’re assessing their current situation, outlining their goals or tracking their progress, give them an explanation for how to do it. This helps them understand what’s expected and how to use your fillable form effectively.

DIY Design tip: Keep it simple

When you’re designing your workbook in Canva, one easy way to make your DIY design look great is to keep it simple. Don’t go overboard with colors, patterns, and background images.

For workbooks and worksheets especially, keep it simple. Be kind to your people.

Some people might prefer to print it out and fill it out by hand. So you don’t want to use a lot of colors everywhere.

Others might be color-blind, so make sure to use enough contrast so that your workbook is still accessible to them.

If you need professional design assistance, take a look at my Ebook Design Services.

Don’t add multiple single-line text boxes for paragraph answers

When clients hire me to redesign their workbooks, I notice one common pitfall a lot of DIY-ers make. They’ve created lines for their students or participants to write on, then added single-line fillable fields to type in on each line.

The problem with this is that people can’t keep typing but would have to click over to a new line instead. It’s easier for your subscribers, clients, workshop participants, or course students to fill out digitally if the fillable parts are boxes that have multi-line fields, so they can keep typing and it just uses the space there is, instead of them having to click on another line if they type a lot of text.

Making your workbook from scratch in Canva taking ages? Save hours creating yours using my E-book/Workbook Templates!