Canva Docs makes it easy to add visuals to your documents

Communication is becoming more and more visual, largely due to the rise of social media. Don’t just send blocks of text to each other. Send videos, memes that combine words and images, emojis, and other forms of visual content. However, especially in professional environments, people often create text-based documents using programs such as Microsoft Word and Google Docs to create long-form content.

Australia-based graphic design platform Canva is now rolling out a product for creating documents with more visual elements called Canva Docs. Users don’t need to cut and paste visual content into documents, they can quickly tap into his Canva library of over 100 million videos, GIFs, photos, illustrations and other visual elements. You can also embed other Canva-created content such as banners and whiteboards.

With Canva Docs, you can essentially leverage all of Canva’s graphic design tools while creating your documentation.

Canva started about ten years ago with the goal of making design software easier to use – cheaper and simpler than sophisticated design tools like Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator.

The platform currently has approximately 87 million monthly users, including 10 million paying users. About 4.7 million users pay for seats on Teams, and that number has tripled in the last 12 months.

Meanwhile, Canva, a privately held company recently valued at $40 billion, is just getting started in the enterprise market. Canva currently has 55,000 paid teams in an organization of over 500 employees. This includes 241 teams on Amazon alone using Canva.

Canva co-founder and chief product officer Cameron Adams told reporters this week: “Bringing the type of content you normally create in your personal life into the workplace is a big shift we’ve seen in the last few years.”

So it’s no surprise that the latest product, Canva, is coming for enterprise giants like Microsoft and Google.In fact, Microsoft is working on its own A Canva-like tool called Microsoft Designerprovides users with access to templates for creating visual content.

Canva Docs is part of the Canva Visual Worksuite and “shows our move to bring it into the workplace rather than a consumer design tool,” says Adams.

Canva Docs lets you drag images, videos, or other elements onto your page for editing. It also enables real-time commenting and collaboration. Adams says it’s useful for taking meeting minutes, writing team strategy documents, and many other use cases.

Within Canva Docs, users have access to Canva tools such as Canva charts and graphs to easily visualize their data.

Canva also offers a variety of templates for Canva Docs, from templates for mood boards to templates for strategy documents. There’s also a ‘Docs to Decks’ feature that lets you turn your documents into presentations with just a few clicks. All formatting and design layout is done automatically.

Canva Visual Worksuite also includes Canva Whiteboard, a new product designed for team collaboration.

“At Whiteboard, we’re starting to take a content-first approach,” says Adams.

Again, this tool allows users to leverage all of Canva’s content and templates. Users can also access the whiteboard from within the presentation, making it easy to pause the presentation and start a brainstorming session.

Whiteboards offer an unlimited canvas so users can drag images anywhere and add as many sticky notes as they want. There are built-in tools such as timers that make it easier to time presentations.

Meanwhile, Canva Presentations has been updated with a feature called Remote Control. With this feature, anyone presenting a set of slides can control the slides on their mobile phone. No more relying on the presentation author to move to the next slide.

Canva Video also added a notable new feature, allowing users to remove the background of their videos with a single click.