Your first design

This walkthrough takes a blank document all the way to a file you can share or send to print. It assumes you've read the workspace tour.

1. Start a new design#

From File → New, or the home screen, pick a starting size preset — they're grouped by use (Social, Product, Screens, Print) — or set a custom width and height. You can change this later from File → Document setup….

2. Choose your units and color mode#

Under View → Units, work in pixels, millimeters, centimeters, inches or points — whatever suits the job. Under View → Color mode, choose:

• RGB (screen) for anything shown on a display.
• CMYK (print) for anything going to a printer. CMYK keeps ink values and soft-proofs them on screen.

If in doubt for a printed piece, start in CMYK — it saves a conversion later.

3. Add content#

Two ways, and you can mix them freely:

• By hand. Press T for text, R / O for shapes, or use the quick-add buttons for images and barcodes. Style whatever you select in the Properties panel.
• With the Assistant. Describe the design in the left panel and let it build a first draft you then refine.

4. Arrange and align#

Select multiple objects (drag a marquee, or Shift-click) and use the Align and Distribute buttons in Properties to line things up. Reorder stacking with Object → Arrange.

The design auto-saves as you work, and Version history (the clock icon) keeps snapshots you can restore at any time.

5. Export#

Open Share → Download (or File → Download) to open the Export dialog. Pick a format:

• PNG / JPEG / WEBP for the web and social.
• SVG for a scalable vector you can reopen in Figma, Illustrator or Inkscape.
• PDF for print or documents.
• PPTX for an editable slide deck.

For a printed piece, choose PDF and set the color space to Print (CMYK). The print options — bleed, crop marks, and the PDF/X-4 standard — are covered in the print guides.

That's a complete design, start to finish. From here, explore the rest of the manual to go deeper on type, color, and production.