Design a Hyperlinked Digital Notebook in Canva – Step by Step

Digital notebooks are making tons of money right now and they're super easy to create. In this video I'll walk you through how to create a digital notebook with clickable tabs in Canva. So to get started in Canva create a new 8.5 by 11 inch document. So the first thing you should do when creating a journal or a planner or notebook is setting up your rulers and guides. This way you can make sure everything is consistent on each page. So this is where my paper will end and my tabs will begin. Right there it's at eight inches and then you want to go to settings, lock guides. So as you click and drag over the design it doesn't disrupt the guide. So let's create our first tab. So press R on your keyboard to activate a rectangle and resize it within that guide. I'm just going to make it a beige tab for now. Click command D or control D to duplicate or you can click on this little guy and before we deselect we're just going to move him and I'm just a little bit of space and then click command D a few more times till we get all five. Click and drag over all of them and just extend them. So we just have a little bit of space at the top of the bottom. So the next thing I'm going to do is look for a rectangle shadow because we want a shadow that's going to pass the tabs. So I'm going to select this one right here right here and then I'm also going to just lower the transparency just a bit. So it looks like we have a little bit of dimension. Let's add a text box. So I want to add numbers on each of these sections. I'm going to change that to one. So we're just going to number our tab. So this one will be one and you want to expand the text box a little. All right and then we're going to duplicate this one and as you move it you'll see those little pink rulers so that way we know they're consistent. And then I'm going to press command D or you can press control D just to duplicate them and then update the numbers. So now let's create the section that the tabs will link to. Press R on your keyboard to activate a rectangle and then resize it. So this will essentially be the paper and I'm going to update the color. Press T on your keyboard to activate a text box. So this is going to be called section one. So this section will appear when you click on this first tab right here and then I'm going to change the font to Cooper BT and then click change all so that way the numbers will also be updated to that font. So now I'm going to put a white section header up here along with some lines. So this gives the user an area to write what their custom section will be. So let's make our cover next. So I'm going to click duplicate page up here and then on this duplicated page I'm going to change the cover. So you want to make sure section one is directly below that in page two and then I'm just going to call this my notes. So I like to create AI covers for my journals and planners because they're definitely unique. So I'm going to select on the home icon at the top and then select Canva AI. Select create an image and then just add your search prompt at the top. So I'll search for flower backgrounds, neutral backgrounds, anything that I think works for my digital notebook or planner. So throughout my AI generation searches I've collected lots of different unique designs. So in my notebook kit you could actually get 50 of these AI images for free that you could use for your notebook covers. So I'm going to select this one and then I'm going to download it and I'm just going to drag it onto my design and resize it. And then if you go to position under layers you could click and drag the cover so it's directly in front of that purple piece of paper but behind the notes section right here. And then I'm just going to select each of these items right here holding shift so I could select multiples and then click group and then I might just lower the transparency of this just a bit so you can see it and then I'm also going to add a little border to this and use one of the colors from the actual notebook. Okay now that we have the cover let's create the line paper. So duplicate this page and then I'm going to change this background to white, grab these lines, hold shift to extend them all the way to the edge and now I'm just going to tighten them up a bit, change the black to maybe more of a darker gray so it's not as intense, click command D on one of those lines, grab this arrow to position it. So as you can see those little pink boxes come up so we know they're perfectly spaced and before I deselect I'm going to click command D or you could click control D if you have windows. All right so now we made our first notes page and then I'm going to label this one section one. So we want to make sure we label all of our sections so that way we can link them back to our tabs. Going to duplicate this and call this section two and make sure you update the name, duplicate this again, section three, four and then five. All right so now that we have all of our sections we're going to connect the tabs. So select on the first tab, click on those little three dots, click link and then find section one, then click done and then I'm also going to do that to section two, link section three, section four and then section five. So you could also link the text if you'd like but I'm just going to keep the buttons linked and then I'm going to click and drag over all of the tabs and the numbers, right click, copy and then I'm just going to delete the ones over here and paste them into this section two. Send to back, delete all these guys, paste, while they're still selected send to back and then I'm just going to do that for the remaining pages and then our notes page we want to make sure that also has the correct tabs, send to back. So let's click on the little grid view at the bottom right and then I'm going to click and drag this notes over here. So I'm going to duplicate this nine times so that we have 10 pages and while we're still in grid view I'm going to select the notes right here, hold shift on my keyboard and then select 10. So let's duplicate this again, you can click here, we're going to click and move them next to section two. Command D, click and drag them to section three, I'm going to do that for four and five and since we linked everything you don't have to worry about the tabs they're all set. So now that we have this really cute cover I want to update the section covers so that way they are cohesive with the main cover. So I'm going to select this purple and then Canva is going to pull in the colors from this graphic which is really cool so that way you can make sure everything is cohesive. So I'm going to select this red, click change all and if I go to grid view they've all been changed and then you can even update the tabs if you like. So I'm going to select this, click change all, so now the tabs have been updated throughout the entire design. So now that you have your notebook ready, click share, download and then we're going to select PDF standard so this way the tabs will be clickable. Okay so I opened the design in Adobe Acrobat, you could easily open it in GoodNotes or another digital planning platform and then you just want to go in and check to make sure all the links are working correctly. So it's always good to double check the links before you put anything up for sale. So then you can add it to your shop, you can add it to Etsy or stand store, create mock-up listings just like these and then also promote your designs on Pinterest. If you struggle with creating mock-up listings or even Pinterest pins, I actually have a template of 10 mock-up listings and 10 Pinterest mock-ups in my digital notebook kit. So if you don't have time creating this entire notebook from scratch, I included six different types of paper, six tabs and also 50 AI covers that you could easily swap out, update the colors and then sell individually. So you could basically sell 50 digital notebooks in your shop. Upload them to Etsy using these mock-up listings and promote them on Pinterest right away. The link to these templates are in the description and if you like this type of video make sure to comment below.