# Canva Carousels from a Brand's Master Template — Step by Step Hand Claude a brand's own Canva master file and a content plan. Get back an **editable Canva design**, built from that brand's real layouts, that a designer finishes in a short polish pass. One prompt does the work. Everything below explains what that prompt is doing so you can trust it, steer it, and fix it when it goes sideways. **HTML render:** `06.SOP_Canva_Carousel_From_Master_Template.html` (same folder — dark/light + EN/ES toggles, Copy buttons on every prompt, all the comparison figures). **Proven on:** Factronics USA (3 carousels, Nov 4–6 2026) · New Blossom (1 carousel, Nov 2026). --- ## 0 — Before you start You need five things. If any are missing, stop and build them first — the run will be bad otherwise, and it will be bad in a way that wastes a designer's afternoon. | # | What | Why | |---|---|---| | 1 | **A Canva master file** for the brand, with its good post layouts as pages | The agent copies pages out of this. Any layout you want reused has to live here. | | 2 | **A Canva folder** for the brand | Where the finished design gets filed. | | 3 | **A content plan** — the actual copy, slide by slide | The agent writes nothing from thin air. No plan, no carousel. | | 4 | **Real photos**, as local files or public URLs | A carousel with no photography looks cheap. See the photo gate in step 3. | | 5 | **The Canva connector enabled** in your Claude session | Ask Claude "is the Canva MCP connected?" If it lists your Brand Kits, you are good. | Check the master's logo is current before the first run. **Every copy inherits it**, so one stale logo in the master becomes a stale logo in every carousel you ever build. ### Getting a public URL for a repo file Anything in the content system is already served publicly. Swap the host: ``` https://github.com/Coordenadas-co/coordenadas-content-system/tree/main/... ↓ https://docs.916.coordenadas.co/... ``` Example: ``` https://github.com/Coordenadas-co/coordenadas-content-system/blob/main/Brands/PayWise/02_brand_kit/design_sheets/app_screens/PW_app_screen-home-screen.jpeg ↓ https://docs.916.coordenadas.co/Brands/PayWise/02_brand_kit/design_sheets/app_screens/PW_app_screen-home-screen.jpeg ``` --- ## 1 — Why we work inside the master file This is the whole idea, so it is worth thirty seconds. On Nov 4 an agent generated Factronics slides from scratch. The facts were right, the fonts were right, the layouts were flat — type on a blue ground, no photography. Pablo threw all of it away and rebuilt every post by hand. The fix was not a better prompt. It was changing **where** the work happens. The agent now edits a copy of the brand's real Canva file, so it starts at the brand's quality bar instead of trying to reach it. > See `fig-00-why-master` in the HTML: the rejected generated set on top, the published set below. --- ## 2 — The prompt Attach these two files from the Factronics design-agent folder so Claude knows the workflow: ``` Brands/Factronics/05_projects/2026-11_Catch_Up/02_Design_Agent/DESIGN_AGENT_PLAYBOOK_HANDOFF.md Brands/Factronics/05_projects/2026-11_Catch_Up/02_Design_Agent/design-agent-playbook.html ``` Then send this, swapping every ``: ``` Mi compañero me compartió un workflow para diseñar social media posts y carruseles por medio del Canva MCP. Me compartió un md file y un diagrama en html que explican el proceso que los agentes siguieron para obtener un resultado cercano al final. Quiero replicar ese workflow para . La idea es usar los templates y assets que tenemos dentro del Brand de en el Coordenadas-Content-System (https://github.com/Coordenadas-co/coordenadas-content-system/) y los contenidos de la carpeta de que tenemos dentro de Canva. Canva Folder: Master Social Media Posts Template: Assets you can upload as real images: IF you need the public url of an image inside the coordenadas-content-system, simply use the public url by replacing "https://github.com/Coordenadas-co/coordenadas-content-system/tree/main/" with "https://docs.916.coordenadas.co/" --- Quiero que crees . Utiliza el "Master Social Media Posts Template" como base, duplica el archivo para no editar el master, y busca dentro de ese archivo los mejores layouts (or pages) que se acoplen a mi plan de diseño. Reemplaza los contenidos (textos e imágenes) con los del carousel . Enlace al plan del carousel: Por favor utiliza estas fotos dentro del carousel: Dame el enlace del editable cuando termines. ``` ### The four lines that actually matter - **"duplica el archivo para no editar el master"** — protects the master. Keep it. - **"busca dentro de ese archivo los mejores layouts"** — tells it to choose layouts itself. If you already know which pages you want, say `usa las páginas 14 a 22` instead; it is faster and more predictable. - **The content plan path** — the single biggest quality lever. A vague plan gives a vague carousel. - **The photos path** — if you skip it, expect the agent to stop and ask. That is correct behaviour. --- ## 3 — What happens after you hit enter Six stages. You appear in three of them. ### Stage 1 · It reads the whole master It exports the master as a PDF and renders every page into contact sheets so it can **see** the layouts rather than guess from page numbers. New Blossom's master is 222 pages; it reviewed all of them across eight sheets before choosing seven. > `fig-01-read-the-master` ### Stage 2 · It proposes a plan, then waits You get a table: which master page becomes which slide, and why. **This is approval gate 1.** Read it properly. It is far cheaper to move a page number now than to re-cut a built slide later. This is also where it raises conflicts. On New Blossom it flagged that the supplied photos were clinical close-ups of one patient in her fifties while the plan described a holiday party and a woman of 30 to 35, and asked how to handle it before building anything. ### Stage 3 · It copies pages and loads photos Pages are copied into a **new** design. Photos upload straight from your machine. **The photo gate:** if approved photos for a slide do not exist, the agent asks you. It must never ship a type-only card because a photo was missing. That silent fallback is what produced the rejected Nov 4 set. ### Stage 4 · It builds and checks its own work It rewrites copy **inside the existing text boxes** — that is what preserves the brand fonts — then places and scales the photos. After every edit Canva hands back a thumbnail, and the agent reads it, finds what broke, and repairs it before you ever see the slide. Minimum two passes. Three real catches from the New Blossom build: a credential line colliding with a headline, two booking dates overlapping, and newly inserted shapes landing on top of the copy. > `fig-03-self-check` It also catches its own content mistakes here. It first copied master page 50 for the trust slide — that page is Dr. Mario Nuñez, and the brief called for Marisol. It caught it while reading the page elements, swapped in page 49, and said so in the handoff. > `fig-04-wrong-page` ### Stage 5 · Preview and save Thumbnails first, then **approval gate 2**. Nothing is committed until you say save. Then it files the design in the brand's Canva folder as ` - - `. > `fig-02-before-after` — all seven master pages above their finished slides. ### Stage 6 · The honest handoff It gives you the editable link **and a written list of what it could not finish**. Read that list. It is the difference between a draft you can trust and one you have to re-verify. From the New Blossom run: the portrait cutout failed (Canva's `remove-background` returned the photo uncut through the API, though it works fine with one click in the editor); Marisol's credential differed between the master and the brief; the chosen layouts had no slot for the small section labels; and the clinical photos need a signed patient release before publishing. > `fig-05-human-touches` --- ## 4 — Your three approvals | Gate | When | What you are actually deciding | |---|---|---| | **1 · The plan** | Before anything is built | Slide count, which master page per slide, how conflicts get resolved | | **2 · The save** | After you see thumbnails | Whether this is worth committing to the brand folder | | **3 · Anything public** | Any time | Never let it make a file public to work around an upload. Say no and upload by hand. | Nothing ships, saves, or goes public without a person saying yes. --- ## 5 — The polish pass, and why it shrinks Open the link, fix what is left, post it. Then tell Claude what you changed: ``` I edited the design by hand. Compare it to your saved version, list my changes, and add each one as a rule to Brands//_config/design-rules.md ``` It diffs the two versions and writes each edit down as a rule. Next carousel starts from those rules, so the polish pass gets shorter every time. On Factronics that is a measured number: | Carousel | Slides | Edited by hand | |---|---|---| | Linx 9830 | 4 | — (first run) | | Linx IJ470 launch | 5 | **4** | | SFMA live | 6 | **1** (cover only) | The target is zero. **Count your edits every time** — it is the only honest measure of whether this is working. ### Rules that already apply to every brand Seed each new brand's `design-rules.md` with these. They came out of the Factronics polish passes. 1. Photo is the hero: it fills at least half the frame and bleeds off an edge. 2. No flat solid overlay on a photo. Use a gradient or halftone fade. 3. Logo is a header anchor: top left, above the headline, readable on a phone. 4. Partner logo chip on every product slide by default. 5. CTA slide: two body lines maximum. 6. Event photos: crop out other exhibitors' branding. 7. Never use a wrong-model photo. If the master shows an old product, always replace the image. 8. Never ship a type-only card because a photo is missing. Ask. 9. Every claim traces to a source. --- ## 6 — Known limits | Limit | What to do | |---|---| | Text added as a **new** element uses a default font, not the brand font | The agent reuses existing text boxes. This is also why small labels sometimes get dropped — if you need them, add them by hand. | | `remove-background` through the connector can return the image uncut | Do it in the Canva editor: select image → Edit image → Remove background. | | Page merges take **one operation per call**, each needing approval | Expect a few approval clicks on bigger builds. | | Copying the same page twice in one call fails | It duplicates the page afterwards instead. | | An outdated logo in the master | Fix the master once. Every future copy inherits the fix. | **Correction to the older Factronics handoff:** it says direct uploads to Canva are blocked by the network. On the New Blossom run uploading local files worked — six photos went up through the connector's own upload URL. Try it; only fall back to a public URL if it fails, and never make a private file public without asking. --- ## 7 — Checklist for a new brand - [ ] Canva folder exists for the brand - [ ] Master file exists, with the current logo and the layouts you want reused - [ ] Content plan written, with the real copy slide by slide - [ ] Photos ready — local folder or `docs.916.coordenadas.co` URLs - [ ] Canva connector confirmed live in the session - [ ] Playbook files attached to the prompt - [ ] Plan approved **before** the build starts - [ ] Thumbnails reviewed **before** the save - [ ] Handoff list read, open items assigned to a person - [ ] Edits reported back, `design-rules.md` updated - [ ] Number of hand-edited slides written down --- ## Worked example New Blossom, November forehead Botox carousel. - **Master:** `NewBlossom_Plantillas 2026`, 222 pages - **Pages chosen:** 178, 181, 180, 182, 49, 78, 62 → slides 1 to 7 - **Photos:** 6 clinical patient photos, uploaded from a local folder - **Caught during the build:** 1 wrong page, 3 layout collisions - **Open for the designer:** 4 items - **Result:** `New Blossom - Forehead Botox NOV 2026 - Carousel`, master untouched The agent picked the master's Dysport / expression-lines family (pages 178–182) because it was the only layout set in that file built on real unretouched clinical photography — which is what the supplied photos were. That kind of reasoning is what the plan gate is for: it showed its choice and said why, before building.