How to Make a Business Card in Google Drive
Google Drive can be your free business card maker if you want. It doesn’t burden you like other design tools like Adobe InDesign or Illustrator , and the results can be just as good. Additionally, Google Drive offers you three ways to design your own business cards if you don’t want to create one from scratch.
We will discuss three ways to make a business card in Google Docs:
1. Design a business card from scratch.
2. Use a business card template in Google Drive.
3. Import a Microsoft Word business card template.
So, let’s get down to simple business – make an eye-catching business card that can be printed or even shared as an image.
Turn the new document into a business card
Google Drive is not a graphical tool. But it does give you a tool or two that you can repurpose for business card design – Google Draw and Google Slides (or Presentation) .
Google Drawing is easier than presentations. Google Slides can offer you a few more features to play with, such as a collection of colorful layout themes and presentation-specific add-ons.
Make your business card
To make it as easy as possible, let’s see how to design a business card in Google Drawing. We design both the front and back of the card. The final maps will look like this:
You can use the same drawing tools in presentations.
Sign in to Google Drive. Select New > More > Google Drawings.
Use a standard business card size ( 8.9 x 5.1 cm or 1.75 aspect ratio ) to set up the page. Standard business card size may vary from country to country. Choose File > Page Setup > Custom and enter values ​​in inches, pixels, or points.
The drawing canvas is transparent by default. Choose the background color you want for your card by right-clicking anywhere on the canvas. You can choose solid color or gradient from the context menu. An image file can also be used as a background.
Since you’ll likely be printing the card, it’s usually best to choose a solid color. The sample card has blue color.
Google Drawings lets you view guides and rulers. Both are critical to accurately placing map elements on the canvas. Enable Snap to Grid and Snap to Guides for more precise insertion and alignment of objects.
Select View > Snap To > Grids/Guides.
Your canvas is now ready. All you have to do is creatively use shapes, text box (for fonts) and images (add your logo) to personalize your business card. Drag the icons onto the canvas and position them as shown in the example.
A tip. Press shift and arrow keys to push them precisely into place.
In the example above, we have used a simple icon and font with a color combination to make the card look more professional. Thanks to the huge collection of free Google fonts, you can use any font that fits your brand image.
You can use many Google Drawings elements to add graphics to your map. Lines, shapes and even Word Art.
Each element can be formatted with more options. To see them, right-click the element and select Format Options from the context menu.
As you can see, the example uses the Montserrat font for the back design, CC0 icons from free icon sites to represent the main logo and tiny phone and email logos, and a simple black vertical line to act as a separator.
The footer with the website address is simply a shape made up of a rectangle and a triangle. As you can see, the adjacent orange pedestal is the same shape but inverted and smaller in size.
Print your business card
Once both sides are ready, you can now send the business card for printing. You can download your designs as a PDF, standard JPEG, or scalable vector image from File > Download .
Of course, you can always send it directly to the printer from Google Drawings. Remember that business cards can be double-sided as in this example. So you need to select the Two-Sided option on your printer. Check if your printer supports double-sided printing. Test your design on plain paper before switching to cardboard.
Create a business card from a Google Docs template
Business card templates are the fastest way to overcome design intimidation. There are several business card templates available for Google Docs. Use Google Search to locate them and open them in Google Drive.
Use a Microsoft Word business card template
As you know, you can open and edit Word files in Google Docs. Word has a gallery of online business card templates and many more sources for third-party business card templates as well. To use it, simply upload the DOCX file to your Google Drive and edit it with Google Docs.
Some graphic elements may not import well. But you can always use the basic design as inspiration and add your own from Google Docs. If you choose to edit a template in Google Docs, the map will automatically open in the Drawings app.
Business cards are still important
v-cards and email signatures may have taken over the old role of the business card, but business cards are still important. A creative business card can create that first impression that no digital image can match. It has a personal touch. Think about it… you can just add a QR code to a card and it will intrigue your next contact just enough for them to check it out.
Think of a more creative way to use business cards and print your own. Try it at your next meeting and see if it helps grease the wheels of your network.