The Beginner's Guide to Canva Sheets | Canva Create 2025 Updates Tutorial

If you're still using Google Sheets or Excel for content calendars or tracking your business numbers, you're seriously missing out. Canva just launched something brand new that changes everything. It's called Canva Sheets, and it's not just another spreadsheet tool.

It brings together data and formulas with Canva's beautiful visuals and built-in AI, which means spreadsheets kind of finally make more sense. Now, after posting my Canva Create updates video, you requested a sheets tutorial so many times that we just have to dive all the way into it today. So, we're going to learn exactly what Canva sheets are, what they can do, and how to use them like a pro.

Whether you're managing clients, creating content, or planning your next launch. Ready? Let's do this.

Okay, let's start off with a little explanation. Canva Sheets is a brand new design type inside of Canva. Works a lot like Google Sheets or Excel.

You still have cells and formulas, charts, and all that good stuff. But here's the difference. It's all built inside the Canva ecosystem, which means that it connects directly to your brand, to your content, to your templates, and your designs.

So, instead of jumping between five different tools to plan a campaign, to analyze your data, to write content, and design graphics, you can just do it all from here. Now, what makes it even more powerful is that Canva didn't just recreate a spreadsheet. They made it visual.

They made it simple and way more beginner friendly with those built-in AI tools like magic formulas, magic charts, and magic insights, which I'll explain in detail in just a moment. So, if you've ever felt like spreadsheets were too boring, too confusing, or too not your thing, this may finally be the one that you actually want to use. By the way, I'm Natalya, and I help you create better content and grow on social media.

So, make sure you subscribe for more useful content like this. And let's jump into Canva so that you can see exactly where to find Canva sheets. Now all you have to do is to go to your Canva homepage and then click on sheet among all the other design type.

Of course, this takes you to start with a completely blank sheet. You can also choose a template which is so cool because we already have a bunch of them available and they can really teach you a lot about what sheets can do. I'll show you the best ones in just a moment.

Or you can just upload your own existing spreadsheet. You can see that I'm just dragging and dropping it into the Canva homepage and it works from Excel, from you know Google Sheets and CSV files basically. So you just edit them right there.

Now just this thing alone makes it easy to bring over your old workflows and upgrade them without having to start from scratch. But let me show you how to use Canva sheets as if you're starting from scratch just so that I can show you all the basic functions and also all the bells and whistles so you understand what these are. Now first you see the spreadsheet like this.

You select your cells and these are all kind of individual cells like this. You have your rows, you have your columns which you select that way. And if you ever need to add a new row or a new column, all you have to do is just to click on that plus sign right in between.

So you can see that it added a new one. If I have a in here and a in here and a in here, you can see that if I click on the plus sign like this, it adds a new one for me um in here. And the same thing goes for your columns.

All you have to do is just click here or you can always rightclick and from here you can add the column to your left or to your right which is super useful and you probably know it so well if you've ever used spreadsheets before. Now you can see that if you rightclick you can size a column to content you can merge different cells. So just as with your regular spreadsheets you can just select a bunch of different cells and then merge them like this and they form one uniform one.

And then from the top, you see the contextual menu that we know so well from other types of designs. You can choose your background color. You can see that I've got plenty of them in here, but I also have access to my brand kit, which again makes everything on brand and polished.

I can just click on anything I like. And this way, I can create my little title at the top. And of course, as with anything else in Canva, you can add your text or your elements.

So, if you go to the text tab, you can just click on any of the text boxes. I've got my headline within my brand kit. Or you can just add a text box like this.

The shortcuts also work. So this great. I'll just say tracker in here.

So you can see that it works just as it would with any other uh design type. Of course, another way of adding text is to do it directly within the cells. So you can just start typing in here and I can say tracker like this.

And from here at the top, you can see my fonts again. So just it's just a matter of customizing everything, making sure that everything works the way you'd like. I started typing literally within the cell.

And you can see that that text appears here at the top as well. So this is another way in which you can just access your cell contents and you can type in your formulas in here as well. So imagine I have this cell selected.

I can just go to the top and type my equal sign and this starts a formula just like it would with any other program and from here you have the suggested formulas or you can just open up all the functions and you can see how many we've got within the sheets in Canva. So this is quite a useful thing as well and of course we'll talk about magic formulas a little later on. Let's say this is going to be my number.

This is going to be my title and this is going to be my value. And from here I can start putting the number in. So maybe I'm numbering as one and two.

So you can see that these are being kind of entered into the cells. And if I select both of them again, I can just drag through the corner just like this just to stretch it out all the way to 12. So let's say this is what I want to do.

And I can literally just start typing my titles in here and the values. So everything works perfectly with currencies as well. So if I want to say £100 in here, I can just do that in here.

And at the top, you can see that it got recognized as a number, as a currency format. From here, you can change it to a number, a percentage, a currency, or a date. And then you have plenty more formats from here if you need all the other different currencies or all the other different types of date formats.

I'll talk about dates in a second. So let's say this is where I want to put my date. And let's say it's an expense tracker, maybe.

So this is where I would put when the expense was made. So what I can do is to go to actions here at the top and this is where you can actually just access all the different types of functions that work within sheets and you can insert the specific type. So I mentioned date.

So I can just go to date here and this is how beautifully formatted the dates are. At any point if I wanted to I can also change the way this looks within the cell. So I can just change the font size or I can change the color.

So, if you go to color, you can see that it changes it to this kind of lovely um outline and also the the text color changes. So, this is a pretty cool way of customizing your um your data. Another thing that we can add in our cells is a mention.

So, if I scroll down again, you've got this mention in here. And this allows you to just add someone right next to you. And this is just going to for this case, of course, make sure that you know who actually made that expense in here.

So, I can just say who in here or person or anything of that nature. And this is great for collaborations as well. If you imagine content calendars, for example, if someone's kind of responsible for creating that piece of content, you can just easily tag them in here.

I can change that at any point to someone else, I can share this design with someone. So, this is quite a cool thing and it really allows for very smooth collaboration. So, I can just add myself in here and that's super cool.

Another thing that I can add into my cell is actually a drop-own menu. So, let's say I want a type of an expense in here. From here I can just select my cell, go down to my dropdown and from here you can create dropdowns.

You have some presets. So you have a very easy kind of you know status ones which are super cool, very easy approval. So again for those collaborative content calendars, this is kind of preset for you in here so that it takes even less time to create your own custom tracker.

But you can just go to create a dropown from here and if you just click on it you see these options in here. So option number one let's say I can select it that way but you can change it. So let's say for this one it's going to be office supply or this one I could say travel expenses and maybe for this one we're going to have education.

So you can just keep adding them like this. You can add a new option from here and then if you ever want to change it you click on edit or you can choose your option color so that everything is beautifully colorcoded within your design. So if I want to stretch out this specific drop-own menu I can just again do the same thing through this part and that adds it all for us.

I'll just edit the travel expenses to be a different color. So let's say this is going to be green and for this one we're going to maybe say um this pink. So just like that you have these different options and you can just change them.

And you can see that because I've changed the colors for this particular dropdown, Canva understood that I have these same drop downs in all the other cells. So it asks me if I want to change it for all the similar drop downs. And again it's a great way to prompt it so you don't mess up if you you know obviously forget to update your other cells.

Canva just makes sure that you're not messing up your whole tracker. You're just changing similar dropdowns for all. So I can just say change all.

And you can see that if I go to them now, all of them will be nicely beautifully colorcoded. So this is how easy it is to actually change things up within the drop downs. And if I don't want them to say anything specific because maybe from number eight, I'll just have kind of empty entries for if someone comes with a new expense, I can put it in here and track it.

I can just literally delete it like this. So I can do it that way. And that just means that this is the place for the mention or for the drop-own menu.

And I can just drag it like this. So that it's kind of having that placeholder within your cell. Same goes for your date.

I can just stretch it out like this. But if I just go back and select it, let's say like that, you can see that these are only kind of your placeholders. Now, let's say you're tracking receipts in a different place.

So maybe someone in your business can just put stuff in a Google Drve or something like that. And this is how you can quickly access those receipts. You can just quickly link it.

So from here you go to link and then you go to actions and at the very bottom in here you see the option to link. So again it works the same way. You can actually link to a specific page in this document.

You can link to a specific design that you've got within Canva or you can just enter a specific link from the website you've got or from any other source on the internet. And this is how you can link things. So again I'm going to stretch it out in here just so we've got more space.

And actually, it just makes me a little annoyed. I've not actually gone all the way to 16 because I've been doing that for these. So, let's fill it like this.

And another type, if you go again to actions and scroll down, you have a specific way to link your Canva designs. So, let's say I've got something that I want to link. Let's say it's a LinkedIn banner.

It wouldn't fit in here, of course, but just to show you what it looks like. But let's say I want to give this tracker a chance to actually not link the receipts, but actually retain the receipts in the form of images in here. So, I can just say receipt.

and it works for both elements and your own uploads. Of course, these have nothing to do with expenses. So, I'll just kind of uh get something on top of my sheet.

Now, if I click on it, it will just add it to my cell if it's selected. You can also kind of drag your images like this. And then you see that this kind of purple panel appears in the middle of the cell, which means I'm trying to enter it inside.

So, this is how easy it would be for someone to just put the receipt on the tracker like this. So, this is super easy. And I can also detach any image and just use it as kind of, you know, as something that is supposed to just look pretty for my trackers.

So I can make everything looks uh look very nice like this. Or I can again use any of the elements. Let's say expenses maybe.

Let's say this is something that could work for me. I just wanted to put it like this. And that can serve as a bit of a um kind of a beauty beauty element to my whole sheet.

But give me two seconds. I'll just fill this whole thing with data and show you all the other things that you can do with it. Now, another very cool and quick thing that I want to show you as well is that if you're in a new sheet and want to create something completely from scratch, but you don't want to spend so much time trying to generate a table, but you couldn't really find anything in the designs, you can literally just go to actions at the top and go for generate table.

And from here, you can describe the table that you want. You see the different um kind of suggestions in here. So, you've got creative requests, you've got to-do list, travel plans, workout plan, meal prep.

So, it's great for kind of more personal stuff in here. Ice cream consumption. And that would be something that I might need at a certain point.

But from here, let's choose say meal prep, right? I can just go and generate. And again, it's all going to get created for me.

And now we can see from here that I have this kind of preview of what it generated for me. It said vegetarian meal ideas, but maybe I could say this bot I am a pescatarian or maybe I sometimes kind of include seafood in my food. So I can just add that and keep tweaking it.

But all I need to do is then to insert. And you can see obviously I have this cell selected. So, this is when it where it landed, but it just literally created this for you.

And you can kind of keep tweaking it. You can maybe, you know, um link up different types of uh recipes that you find for it from the internet. So, maybe if you find something on a specific blog that you really love, you can just link it in here.

And this is how easy it is for you to meal prep. So, Canvas is really universal. It's really great not just for business, but also for your personal life.

So, if you I just wanted to show you this generate table feature because I feel like it's still quite a cool thing to be able to utilize in your work it. Now, I filled this expense tracker with some data so that we've got something to work off of. And now, imagine I want to count up all the values from the expenses in here.

So, what I can do is to just select that little cell in here. I'll go to the top just so it's easier to see and I can just click the equals sign from here and I can just go to sum because I'm summing certain things up. And if I click on it, I can literally just drag and select all of the different values in here.

And from here, just click enter. And this is how easy it is to obviously enter our formulas. Now, let's talk about what I think is one of the most exciting parts of Canva Sheets.

Magic formulas. We've all been there trying to remember how to structure an if function or VLOOKUP and ending up Googling it, but then you'd have to literally read like five articles or watch a few YouTube videos to get exactly what you want. Luckily, with this new Canva feature, you don't have to do it anymore.

All you have to do is to use magic formulas, you can literally describe in your own words what you want the spreadsheet to do, and Canva will create the formula for you. For example, you can type something like, add up all the sales in column B, count how many clients are marked as complete, find the average engagement for my Instagram posts, and Canva just writes the correct formula. It's so, so simple.

You don't need to be good at spreadsheets anymore. You tell it what you want and Canva takes care of the more technical stuff. Going back to our expense tracker, if you didn't remember what this sum formula was, all you need to do is to just type the equal sign and go to magic formulas.

From here, I could just say add up my expenses. And if I just click this again, it analyzes everything. So, it gives you the specific formula and you can insert it in here.

And you can see that it is actually pretty okay. Of course, we don't have anything in these cells. So, if I wanted to, I can just stretch it out to include everything up to cell C13.

If I wanted to show you something a little bit more elaborate, let's say this is a marketing budget tracker, so of course there are more mo moving pieces. And I want this column to count up the remaining budget at the point of making this expense. So, let's say in here, I'm going to enter equals and then go to magic formulas.

So, let's see if it actually understands what I want from it. Perfect. Yes, the answer is 31,000.

And here's a formula. So this is exactly what I want. And of course the current budget will kind of count it up from this cell.

So if I just drag it like that, you can see that it counts up all the remaining budget for me till the very end. So this is pretty amazing and you can see that anything you ask it, if you ask precisely enough, Canva AI will understand it and the magic formulas will just generate those formulas for you. Another super useful AI powered feature we've got within sheets is magic insights.

Now here's what it does. It looks at your entire spreadsheet. It analyzes the data for any patterns and trends and then it gives you easy to digest summaries and highlights.

For example, you could ask it which product sold the most, what's the busiest month for client work, or are there any unusual drops in reach? And then Canva Sheets will answer that in a simple summary right there in your design. Now, I can just select my whole table in here.

So I could just select the data point or I can go to this little point in here which is kind of at the crossroads from both the columns and the rows. I can just select the whole data sheet in here. And if I go to actions I can find magic insights in here.

I can just ask what category ate the most of the budget. I'm trying to be as casual as I can with it. So to test out Canva AI and see if it understands me.

Let's hit generate. And voila. Yeah, you can see that it understands what ate the most of the budget meant.

So, it says the total expenses for the category that consume the most budget is 10,000 and uh the one that consumed the most budget is event logistics. And the next thing is that it actually suggested some of the good charts that would work well within this specific sheets. I can just click on any of those and it will add this chart to my sheet.

So, this is super cool. Now, let's talk about another useful feature within sheets and it's called magic charts. Now, it helps you visualize your data without having to find chart types that work or to format them manually.

Think of all the ways it could help you out. The normal way we look at charts is through client reports and presentations, pitch decks, etc. But think outside the box.

You can easily add them to your social media posts to create fun infographics, add more credibility to your carousels, or just fun memestyle posts that seem serious because of charts, but of course actually are just super relatable. Now, let's say I want to select this part of my spreadsheet and try to generate some charts from it. Let's say I'm ignoring the date, ignoring the remaining budget at the moment.

So, I'm just going to go to actions at the top and then go to magic charts. From here, you can see that Canva AI suggests different types of charts for me that would work well with visualizing this specific data. You've got bubble plot, you've got area, so many cool, really nice and visual charts.

But I want to go for maybe a classic pie chart in here. So I'll just click on it like this. And you can see that it just added all the different types of kind of expenses that I've generated.

And you can see in here that it gives you the source. So it gives you the specific values that you've picked. You can see the chart setup.

You can customize it further. You can add a legend if you want. You can form up the values to numbers if you prefer.

I prefer the percentages in here. You've got more settings in here with filters. But for now with data, what I want for you to pay attention to is this live button.

So it means that if you're using this anywhere else within your sheet, as I've just mentioned before, it is literally live. So let's say this is my chart that I've got within my sheet and I actually want to use it further on within my presentation. So imagine this is part a part of a presentation that I'm creating in here and this marketing budget would just be there as kind of as an extra source of of information but the presentation itself would be this.

Now I can literally just paste it in here and just drag it like this. And you can see that it still pulls from that same uh kind of sheet that I've got in here. Let's go for this and actually just make it blend nicely into the background.

So this is what it would look like. And now let's say I want to change something in here. So let's say from 10,000 I'm going to go and splurge and say a 100 thou,000.

You can see that my chart original chart changed completely. And if I go to my presentation, it changed as well. So this is super cool.

Now imagine I have a different presentation in a completely separate file. So this is my original file in here and this is my new sample presentation and I want to paste and use that chart to um visualize my data. I'm going to paste it in here.

And you can see that it just gave me the same same type of data that I had in my original one. Let's say this is what I want. I then go back and actually change it back change my venue cost back to 10,000.

You can see in here that this one changed back to our original chart. But if I jump back in here, this is not live in that same matter. If you go to edit, you see that it pulls it all up from the Canva sheets.

because it's a it's a different design. What I need to do is to just click on refresh data and that's going to bring us back into the same data point. So again, it's not automatic when you go to a different file, but it is as easy to refresh the data just before a presentation.

You can run a little bit of a check and just go and refresh all of your charts if you need to. Okay, we've created our tables, we filled them with data and formulas, and we got some useful insights. But now we're getting into a more elaborate way of using sheets, if you could say that.

And that's for doing things at scale. And this part kind of blew me away. I'm not going to lie.

And I'll show you a few cool use cases here. Now, imagine you have to remove backgrounds from a bunch of assets at once. That's all right.

You can place them in one column, then select it all, and then hit background remover. Now all your photos have no backgrounds. Imagine you're creating a sheet with a directory of products that are to be uploaded to your website.

Once you gather them all along with the product photos, you can just remove the background so that you have this transparent PNG ready at scale. Super cool. And in the same way, you can resize your designs in bulk following the same process.

Now, speaking of doing many things at once, Magic Write also works within Canvas Sheets. And this means you can generate copy like captions for Instagram posts or subject lines for emails, call to action for product pages, and so much more. All of it based on the data from your spreadsheet.

Say we have this example content calendar here. You can add a new column for all text. Then select it and then hit fill empty cells.

Canva AI analyzes what this column should be based on the title you have for it and all the content around it and then automatically fills the cells using magic right. So I'll just say a headline in here. Again I'm just going to maybe select these ones.

I can go to magic right from here and maybe say write am again you can see that I've got my result in here I can just say insert and they're just seamlessly inside. So this helps you create content at scale but of course everything should be tweaked as with any content generated by AI. And if you create content in multiple languages I'm sure you also love magic translate because it lets you translate any text in your sheet with just one click.

You can literally translate all of your stuff in seconds without spending that extra time translating it one by one. Even if translation may not be perfect, although the AI tools are becoming so good at it, and that's coming from someone who has a degree in philology, you're still saving a ton of time because the translator can run checks here as opposed to doing the works themselves fully. Super helpful if you're running accounts in different regions or if you're working with international clients.

Now, what I can do is to just select these two columns, go to actions at the very top and then go to translate. From here, I'm going to choose Polish because this is my native language. So, it's the easiest for me to um to check.

Of course, apart from that, you can um change the tone of voice. I'll stick with original because it kind of will analyze what the original tone is and try to make the translation as faithful as possible. You can translate the whole pages or you can just translate text in selected cells, which is exactly what I want.

And I will hit translate. And you can see that now I have all of my headlines and copy translated into another language. Super cool.

And talking about scaling wouldn't be complete without mentioning the Bulk Crate feature, which you may know so well from this video right here. If you haven't used it yet, make sure you check it out now. You're going to love this feature.

But I want to show you how it works super smoothly with sheets. Now, I have this tip list for plant care. I can from here just go to apps like this and then go to bulk crate in here and then you can see I can select this sheet.

So I will just select all of it like this or I can just select a specific data range. So I can just scroll down and just go to the top just to make sure that I'm being very localized. Then I can hit continue and from here I will be able to choose a specific template from my library that I want.

I'll go for V crate. Here's the one that I want. So this is my tips from my first column and my photo from my second column.

So of course I have to connect these tips. So the tips are supposed to go in here. So I'll go right click and go to connect data.

And from here I can select these tips. And of course images obviously have to land in the frame. So I'll select the frame, right click to connect data and go for photo because this is my photo column from the second column.

And right around now, I can go to advanced options and you can decide if you want for this to create 30 individual designs in your account. They will be created in one folder. Or if you want multiple pages in one design, which is my choice at this stage.

So I can just hit create a design. I can just click on it and go to the specific link. So it will open it up for me.

And you can see that from here I have a whole host of different um tips that I can use in here. and they were generated for me using that sheet. It's a dream for batching content for Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn, or even product listings.

But again, as I always say, it's not meant to be posted as is day in and day out on your social because it's not what it's meant to do. It's supposed to lighten the load for you and fill up your content calendar strategically with longer breaks so that you have something scheduled and it's much easier to then batch create content in between. I've spoken about how to do it better in this video, so make sure you watch it next.

Now, I'm sure you can already see the potential for using Canvas Sheets in your business, but I'll try to inspire you a bit more with some realworld examples or use cases for your small business. You can use it as an income and expense tracker for your revenue, invoices, payments, and expenses with Magic Charts, creating beautiful income reports for you and even visualizing your profits over time. You could create a simple dashboard for client workflows with deliverables, with due dates, invoice status, and notes.

And just like with anything else in Canva, it's sharable, meaning you can easily collaborate with the clients themselves within that dashboard. You can also plan a launch timeline, mapping out every part of your product launch from pre-launch content, then email marketing assets to be designed and due dates, all of it in one place. Or let's say an email campaign tracker to track open rates to track click-through rates and conversion rates across all of your different newsletters to notice those high performers at a glance and capitalize on them.

Now, with Magic Insights, it would be even easier to see which ones are converting best. And of course, I always say Canva wouldn't be what it is without the amazing templates, and it's really no different here. They give you loads of structure from the get- go, and they're so easy to tweak and personalize because, like with anything else in Canva, it's so easy to just drag and drop things or shuffle the colors.

you're not starting from a blank page, which can be so so helpful at the very beginning when we're all just still getting used to everything that sheets can do. If you're not sure where to start or you're looking for inspiration, here are some of my personal favorite templates. Now, we have these two social media calendars.

This one and this one. They're great for batching and planning content, but they also come with very useful charts for content theme and platform distribution. So this is really cool and very useful.

Then we have this contact list, the sales contact list in here or this lead tracker like this. And this helps you track everything at all stages of your leads that that they're going through to make sure you have all the crucial details available at hand. Then we have this invoice tracker to stay on top of any due dates and outstanding balances.

for this amazing budget tracker for obvious reasons. Very helpful to stay on top of your income and expenses. So, Canvas Sheets is not just your regular spreadsheet tool.

It's not even close. It's actually a super powerful tool for visual planning, for analysis, and even your content hub. It gives you the structure of spreadsheets, but it loads it more with creative tools that, as Canvas says, they combine productivity and creativity, which just makes life that much easier.

If you're a small business owner, a content creator, or just someone who works with information every day, you're going to love how this fits into your workflow. Let me know in the comments how you plan to use it. I'd love to see your ideas, and I'm already working on a content batching workflow tutorial for you.

So, make sure you subscribe and hit that notification bell to not miss it. In the meantime, make sure you check out our other brand new Canva updates that were just announced at Canva Crate this year. It's one of the best feature drops we've had in a while.