How to Create Hyperlinked Digital Planners in Canva (Step-by-Step)

Key Takeaways

1. Create clean, layout for your planning pages
2. Create hyperlinks to different pages of your digital planner
3. Export as PDF
4. Test & get ready to sell

Ever wanted to create a hyperlinked digital planner in Canva but don’t know where to start? Today, we will see how to create hyperlinked digital planners in Canva.

If we have not met before, I’m Neha – a spreadsheet nerd who uses spreadsheets for notes to business planning. While I love using spreadsheets, I also love to use digital planners as they are much easier to decorate and play with stickers.

Before we see how to create hyperlinked digital planners in Canva, let me quickly give you a quick walk through of what is digital planner and how people use it.

What is a digital planner?

As the name suggest, digital planners are basically planners that people use digitally either on tablet or smartphone.

These are thoughtfully designed PDFs, that people can use in PDF annotation apps like Goodnotes, Notability, Xodo, and Samsung Notes. This gives you the ability to write in a digital planner, similar to printable planners.

A digital planner mainly consists of:

• Planning layouts – various planning pages
• Navigation Tabs – the clickable labels like “Daily,” “Weekly,” “Monthly,” “Notes,” etc. that lets jump you to different sections of the planner
• Hyperlinks – links to different page or portion in a planner. When you click on it, you can navigate (or jump) to the selected page. You write in a digital planner with a stylus, but you move around with links.

How to create a digital planner in Canva?

Now that we’ve seen what is a digital planner, let’s see how to create one. While your digital planner may be as simple or as complex as you want, they all follow these steps:

1. Decide & design the planner pages
2. Create hyperlinks to relevant pages
3. Export as PDF
4. Test & sell

Let’s see each step in detail.

1. Plan your pages first so your links make sense

A digital planner is only as good as its page layout. Planning first saves hours later, because you won’t have to re-link things after you change your mind.

Depending on your customer needs, you may have detailed pages. But a good page to start is to have:

• Cover
• Index
• Yearly planning page
• Monthly planning pages
• Weekly planning pages
• Daily planning pages
  

Once you’ve the basic structure you can add more details as needed. You can have 12 month planning pages, 52 weekly planning page, and 7 daily planning pages.

You can also add extra pages like health, finance, menu, notes, lists, etc. The choices are endless and final pages depend on the kind of digital planner you’re creating.

Choose a planner size that works on tablets

To be honest, there is no right size when it comes to digital planners as most people use digital planners not ab. They can easily slide, zoom, or pinch the planner as needed.

Two common formats for digital planners are portrait or landscape. Portrait often feels like a real notebook page, and it gives you tall writing space. Landscape can feel more “dashboard-like,” and it gives you room for side tabs and wide weekly layouts.

2. Add hyperlinks in your Canva digital planner

Once your page designs and layouts are ready, next step is to add hyperlinks to your pages. This step is what makes your digital planner.

Before you start adding hyperlinks, you need to design your navigation tabs.

1. Add Navigation Tab Hyperlinks

Navigation tabs are shortcuts to different sections of the planner. Think of your planner like a shopping mall. The Index is the map near the entrance, and the tabs are the big store signs. Navigation tabs are like maps for your planner (mall) which helps your customers to easily find different sections.

Sketch a simple navigation map for your planner. Again, how many tabs you’ve depends on how many detailed sections you have in your planner.

Here’s a mini “sitemap” you can copy and tweak. Each line item in the below list can be a tab menu and links to that specific page.

• Cover
• Index (main hub)
• Year at a glance
• Months (Jan to Dec)
• Weekly section (all weeks)
• Daily section (optional)
• Monthly pages (12)
• Extras (trackers, lists)
• Notes pages (lined, grid, blank)

You can either link to the first page of the section or link to a section cover for each. Each section cover may then have links to various sub-pages in that section.

For eg: Months section may have links to different month planning and weekly planning pages.
Extras may have links for trackers, lists, habits, etc.

As you can see, there are a lot of ways to link different pages of your digital planner.

Also, add Back to Index links on the pages people use most, like monthly, weekly, and notes. That one small link reduces frustration fast.

2. How to add hyperlinks in Canva

Now that we have designed are navigation tabs, next step is to insert hyperlinks to different pages.

In Canva, you add a hyperlink by selecting an element (a tab, button, or text), then assigning it to another page in your Canva document. After export, those become tappable links inside the PDF.

Aim for tabs that are big enough to tap without zooming. Strong contrast also helps, like dark text on a light tab, or the reverse.

Follow these steps to insert hyperlinks in your Canva digital planner:

1. Click the tab (or button) you want to make tappable.
2. Click the Link icon, or press Ctrl+K (Windows) or Cmd+K (Mac).
3. Choose Page as the link type.
4. Pick the destination page in your Canva document.
5. Apply the link, then repeat for other tabs.

Unfortunately, at the time of writing this, Canva doesn’t provide Master slide feature. So once you’ve created a hyperlinked navigation tab in one page, you need to copy it to other page. You can also duplicate pages that already include them

With this step, your Canva digital planner has hyperlinks.

3. Export and test your digital planner

Once links are in place, it’s time to export the planner as a clickable PDF, then test it in real apps.

Add final touches to your digital planner before exporting. Add a catchy cover page matching the theme of your planner, an instructions page introducing yourself & offering a related freebie. You can also include a short terms of use to make usage instructions clear.

1. Export as a PDF that keeps your hyperlinks

In Canva, choose Download, then choose PDF.

For most clickable planners, PDF Standard is the best starting point because it keeps the file size smaller. Don’t use Compress PDF as it reduces the quality of the images. Also, don’t export as Flattened PDF as it will remove the hyperlinks from the exported PDF.

A few export tips that prevent headaches:

Download as a single PDF, not separate images. Also, avoid workflows that flatten pages into images after export, because that can strip or break tappable links in some cases.

After export, open the PDF on your computer first and click a few tabs. Then move on to tablet testing.

2. Test every link in Goodnotes, Notability, and one free PDF app

Now that you’ve created an amazing digital planner, don’t skip testing. Testing makes sure you catch any dead links, any issues, or any page-misalignments.

1. Import the PDF, you saved in previous step, into Goodnotes, then test tabs from three different sections.
2. Tap Next and Back buttons inside one section (like Weekly).
3. Tap Back to Index from at least five random pages.
4. Import into Notability and repeat the same checks.
5. Import into a free app like Xodo, then repeat again.

If a link fails, go back to Canva, find the page, correct the link, and export again. Most fixes take under two minutes once you know where the problem lives.

Conclusion

Hopefully this post gave you ideas on how you can create your own hyperlinked digital planner in Canva. If you want a shortcut, you can save time by using a pre-made Canva digital planner template.