Canva Playbooks

Use these when the deliverable should live in Canva — an editable design, brand assets, social sizes, or an export-ready PDF or MP4 — rather than in a locally generated slide deck or Google Slides. The payoff: you stay in the conversation while Alfrada OS handles the imports, conversions, and exports you'd otherwise babysit in a browser tab.

When to choose Canva vs other tools

Goal	Prefer
Editable Canva design, brand templates, social sizes	Canva
Slide deck from markdown in Google Workspace	Google Slides
Quick local slide deck without connecting an account	Presentation Create / Presentation Edit
Static hero / product image	Image Lab
Import PDF/DOCX/PPTX into Canva for visual editing	Canva import
Surgical edits to an uploaded file, design preserved	PPTX Patch / Doc Patch / PDF Patch

For those design-preserving surgical edits, see Patch An Uploaded Deck in the presentations playbook and the Word / PDF workflows in the document analysis playbook.

Connect Canva first under Settings → Tools & Data → Data Sources → My Canva. Alfrada OS confirms which Canva account is active before it works.

Import → Edit → Export

• Good for: turning an uploaded deck or PDF into an editable Canva design, then exporting for review
• Best setup: upload the source file to the session first
• Example prompt:

Import and export

Import the board-deck.pptx I uploaded into Canva as a design titled 'Board Deck — Editable', wait for the conversion to finish, then export it back to me as a PDF.

Alfrada OS imports the file, waits for Canva to finish converting it, then exports the format you asked for — big files take a minute or two.

Upload Asset → Create Design

• Good for: seeding a social post or ad creative from an existing image
• Best setup: an image in your session files, or a public link
• Example prompt:

Asset to design

Upload the hero.png from this session to my Canva library as 'Spring hero', then create a 1080×1080 design titled 'Spring drop teaser' that starts from that image.

Alfrada OS adds the image to your Canva content library, waits for the upload to finish, then creates the design with your image already placed. A public link works just as well as a local file — no need to download it first.

Image Lab → Canva Asset Handoff

• Good for: generating the visual in chat, then finishing the design in Canva's editor
• Best setup: describe the image you want and where it should end up
• Example prompt:

Generate then hand off

Generate a clean hero image of a mountain sunrise with Image Lab, upload it to my Canva library as 'Summit hero', and create a 1080×1080 social post seeded with it so I can finish the layout in Canva.

Image Lab renders the image into your session files; Alfrada OS then uploads it to your Canva library and opens a new design with the asset already placed — you pick up in Canva's editor instead of starting from a blank canvas.

Multi-Account Targeting

• Good for: agency workflows with personal, agency, and client Canva accounts connected
• Best setup: connect up to three Canva accounts; each shows its display name under Settings → Tools & Data → Data Sources
• Example prompt:

Agency account browse

Using my agency Canva account, list the 10 most recently modified designs I own.

When more than one account is connected, name the account the way its display name appears in Data Sources and Alfrada OS works against that one — it won't guess or broadcast to all three.

Heads up

• Imports, exports, and uploads run in the background. Alfrada OS keeps checking until Canva finishes the job — large files can take a minute or two, and you'll get the result without asking twice.
• Export formats vary by design type. Alfrada OS checks what a design supports before exporting, so you don't hit an unsupported-format error.
• Finished exports land in your session files when possible; otherwise you get a download link that stays valid for about 24 hours — save the file or re-export if it goes stale.
• MP4 export, brand kit, and premium templates need a paid Canva plan on your Canva account — Alfrada OS doesn't unlock those.

Under the hood — the 14 Canva tools

The My Canva connection exposes 14 tools: canva_get_user, canva_create_design, canva_list_designs, canva_get_design, canva_import_design, canva_get_import_status, canva_export_design, canva_get_export_status, canva_get_export_formats, canva_upload_asset, canva_upload_asset_from_url, canva_get_upload_status, canva_get_asset, canva_list_folder_items.

Parameter casing at the wire level: POST tools use snake_case (design_id, asset_id); GET/status tools use camelCase (designId, jobId, exportId). Alfrada OS normalizes common aliases automatically.