Draft a social post from chat
Describe the post in chat and read the draft Oppermind opens in the Design editor.
✦ Course · Intermediate
Design a social post and a print-ready flyer
Draft a post from chat or a template, retype and group objects on the canvas, tag a brand kit, then export PNG, SVG and a PDF with bleed and crop marks.
Start courseYOUR OUTCOME
By the end you will have a portrait social post and an A4 flyer exported as a PDF with bleed and crop marks.
Start a design from chat or a template Edit, arrange and restyle it by hand or in chat Export for social and for print
6 min
Start the flyer from a template at print size
Insert a Library template, then resize the canvas so the flyer prints at full A4.
Edit text in place and set the type
Double-click a text box to retype it, then choose its font, size and weight.
Arrange, align and group objects
Line objects up against the page or each other, and group the ones that should move together.
Put your brand kit on the chat
Tag a brand kit in the composer so new designs and chat edits start from your colours and fonts.
Change the design with AI edits
Ask chat to reword, recolour, resize or restack the open design, or send one object through Edit with AI.
Export the post as PNG and SVG
Save the post at the right pixel size, and know what each export keeps.
Export a print-ready PDF with bleed and crop marks
Extend the artwork past the edge, then export a CMYK PDF with bleed and crop marks.
What each lesson covers
The course, lesson by lesson.
Draft a social post from chat
Describe the post in chat and read the draft Oppermind opens in the Design editor.
This course uses the Design editor in the desktop workspace on a computer. The phone has its own Design Editor with different tools, so it isn't covered here. In an empty chat, click the Design chip, or find it under the chevron at the end of the chips, and it starts your message with the word Design. Describe the post, who it's for, the words it has to carry and the shape you want. Oppermind builds the design as separate objects, such as text boxes, shapes and library artwork, sets the canvas size and background, and opens it in the Design pane. It picks the layout, colours and fonts itself, so treat what opens as a first draft. The Properties panel on the right shows the canvas size, and its Sizes tiles switch to presets such as Instagram Post (1080 × 1080) without moving anything. While the pane is open, the composer shows the design's name with an editing tag, and your next message changes this design.
Practice. Ask for a post of your own from the Design chip. When it opens, drag the Zoom slider until the whole page fits, check the Size boxes in Properties match what you asked for, and read the status line under the pane for the object count and canvas size.
Design an Instagram post for Saltbush Bakery's Sourdough Saturday, a hands-on bread class with Mei Tan on Saturday 17 October at 8am in Geelong West. Portrait, 1080 × 1350, warm and simple, with the date easy to spot.
Start the flyer from a template at print size
Insert a Library template, then resize the canvas so the flyer prints at full A4.
Open a blank design with the + button in the dock's tab bar and choose Design, then click Library on the toolbar. Under Templates, pick a category chip such as Marketing and click a card. Event Poster sets the canvas to 595 × 842 with a dark background and adds its text, shapes and artwork on top of anything already on the page. Next, set the print size. The PDF export counts 96 canvas pixels to the inch, so 595 × 842 prints at about 157 × 223 mm, the shape of A4 but smaller. For a full A4 flyer, right-click the canvas, choose Resize canvas… and enter 794 by 1123. With Reflow objects ticked, every object's position and size scale with the canvas. Font sizes don't change, though, so the words look smaller on the bigger page until you enlarge them in the next lesson.
Practice. Open two blank designs and insert Event Poster in each. Resize one to 794 × 1123 with Reflow objects ticked and the other without it, and compare where the text lands.
Open a new Design pane and click Library, then Templates, Marketing and Event Poster. Right-click the canvas, choose Resize canvas…, set Width (px) to 794 and Height (px) to 1123, leave Reflow objects ticked and click Apply.
Edit text in place and set the type
Double-click a text box to retype it, then choose its font, size and weight.
Double-click a text box to type straight into it. The words are selected when the box opens, so typing replaces them. Press Enter or click away to keep the change, or Esc to leave the box as it was. Each edit is one undo step, and Fontwork opens the same way. Enter finishes the edit rather than starting a new line, so each line of a flyer is its own text box, as it is in Event Poster. To restyle a box, select it and use Font family, Font size, Bold and Italic on the toolbar or the selection bubble, or the Text section of Properties. Font combo sets a heading and body pair across the page. The canvas fetches each web font the design names, such as Event Poster's Bebas Neue, and redraws once it arrives. If a font can't be loaded, a note names it and a stand-in shows in its place.
Practice. Replace the date, venue and ticket lines with details of your own. Press Esc halfway through one edit to see the old words return, then raise the headline sizes in Properties now the page is bigger and check each headline still fits on one line.
Double-click MIDNIGHT, type SOURDOUGH and press Enter. Do the same to change BLOOM to SATURDAY and LIVE IN CONCERT to A HANDS-ON BREAD CLASS.
Arrange, align and group objects
Line objects up against the page or each other, and group the ones that should move together.
Click an object to select it, Ctrl-click to add or remove another, or drag across empty canvas to box-select several. As you drag an object it snaps into line with the page and nearby objects, and guides show what it matched. Hold Shift to move freely, or nudge with the arrow keys. Align selection lines up one object against the page, or two or more against each other. When pieces belong together, select them and press Ctrl+G, or choose Group from the right-click menu. From then on, clicking any member selects the whole group and dragging moves it as one. Double-click a member to select it on its own, and a double-click on a text box inside a group opens it for typing. Ctrl+Shift+G, or Ungroup on the right-click menu or in the More menu, splits the group again. Bring to front and Send to back on the right-click menu decide which object sits on top.
Practice. Group the two thin rules with the date and venue lines so the details block moves as one. Centre it with Align selection, move it with the arrow keys, then ungroup it with Ctrl+Shift+G.
Click the dark stars on the left, Ctrl-click the pink sparkles on the right and press Ctrl+G. Then click the stars once and press Shift+Up twice.
Put your brand kit on the chat
Tag a brand kit in the composer so new designs and chat edits start from your colours and fonts.
A brand kit holds a business's colours, fonts and voice, and a logo if you add one. It works through chat rather than the editor. Click + in the composer, open the Brands tab and pick a kit, and a chip with the kit's name and a brand kit tag joins the composer. Requests you send while the chip shows carry the kit. A new design is built from its colours and fonts and can include the logo, and chat edits to the open design get the kit as well. No brand kit, at the top of the list, turns branding off for the chat, and × on the chip drops the kit. Manage brand kits → opens Settings on the Brand kit tab, where you make and edit kits. Nothing in the editor's own panels applies a kit, so restyle an existing design by asking in chat with the chip showing. Designs made from chat on the phone don't use brand kits.
Practice. Make a kit from Manage brand kits → if you don't have one. Tag it, ask for the lesson 1 post again and compare the two drafts. Then click × on the chip and check the next reply ignores the kit.
In a new chat, with the Saltbush Bakery kit chip showing, type: Design an Instagram post for Sourdough Saturday, portrait 1080 × 1350, in our brand colours and fonts.
Change the design with AI edits
Ask chat to reword, recolour, resize or restack the open design, or send one object through Edit with AI.
With the editing chip showing, describe a change in chat and Oppermind applies it to the open design. It can reword, recolour, move, resize, add and delete objects, and it can change the page background, the canvas size and the stacking order, as in resize to 1080 × 1350 or send the title to the back. A canvas resize from chat leaves objects where they were rather than scaling them, so ask for the layout to fit afterwards. For a change to one object, select it and click ◆ Edit with AI on the selection bubble, type what you want and press ◆ Apply. The request goes to chat as your message, naming the object, and the canvas changes when the reply arrives. Each change lands as its own step, so Ctrl+Z walks back through them. Oppermind decides the exact colours and positions, so look over each change and ask again if it missed.
Practice. Select the date pill, click ◆ Edit with AI and ask for it in the bakery's green. Then ask chat to change the background colour, and undo one step to compare.
Resize the canvas to 1080 × 1350 and make the background cream.
Export the post as PNG and SVG
Save the post at the right pixel size, and know what each export keeps.
Set the zoom to 100% before you export a PNG, since the file is drawn from the canvas as it shows on screen, without handles or guides. Export / Download on the toolbar, PNG @2x in the More menu and Export PNG on the right-click menu save the page you're on at twice its on-screen size, so a 1080 × 1350 post at 100% comes out at 2160 × 2700. Instagram 1:1, Facebook OG and Reels 9:16 save a PNG at exactly that size, filling it and cropping what doesn't fit. A PNG waits for the design's web fonts before it saves. If a font can't be fetched, the file still saves with a stand-in and a note names the font. Pictures that can't be read are left out and listed by where they came from. SVG saves the current page as vector shapes and text that name their fonts rather than carry them, so a computer without those fonts shows others. There's no JPG option.
Practice. Export the post with PNG @2x at 100% and again at 50%, and compare the pixel sizes. Then try Instagram 1:1 to see what a portrait post loses at the top and bottom.
Drag the Zoom slider to 100%, then open More and choose PNG @2x. Then choose SVG from the same menu for the printer.
Export a print-ready PDF with bleed and crop marks
Extend the artwork past the edge, then export a CMYK PDF with bleed and crop marks.
Choose PDF in the More menu to open the Design PDF box. Output offers a Vector/text PDF through your browser's print dialog, flattened RGB or Device CMYK PDFs at 300 DPI, and an option labelled PDF/X-4 with printer ICC. That option needs the .icc or .icm profile your printer supplies, up to 4 MB, and converts the page on Oppermind's server. Bleed, mm starts at 3 and Crop marks is ticked. The flattened outputs give every visible page trim and bleed boxes. The page background stops at the trim line, so anything meant to run off the edge has to overhang it, about 12 px for 3 mm. Every output waits for the design's web fonts, and a note names any font it had to swap for a stand-in. Vector/text PDF keeps text sharp but stays RGB. Device CMYK is a generic conversion, so ask the printer what they need.
Practice. Export the flyer once as Flattened Device CMYK PDF (300 DPI) and once as Vector/text PDF (RGB, print dialog), saving the second as a PDF from the print dialog. Compare the edges of both files, then zoom in on the headline to see how sharp each one keeps it.
Draw a rectangle and in Properties set X and Y to -12, W to 818 and H to 1147. Fill it with the poster's dark colour and choose Send to back from the right-click menu. Stretch the pink band 12 px past the left, right and bottom edges the same way. Then choose PDF in the More menu, pick Flattened Device CMYK PDF (300 DPI), keep Bleed, mm at 3 with Crop marks ticked, and click Export.
Keep going
Make the learning stick
Start with one real piece of work.
Open Oppermind beside the lesson, apply each step, and leave with something you can use.