Make a flyer or poster with AI

What do you need before you start?

Gather the items below before you open the chat. You already have most of them.

• The event name, in the words the organizer uses
• Date, start time, end time, and time zone if people might confuse it
• Place, as a full address or a room name people already know
• Who to contact, and the one link or phone number you are allowed to print
• A way to edit text: the chat, plus Canva's free plan or another tool where text is a real text box

Write those facts in a note before you open a chat. The flyer fails when the chat invents a detail you did not have.

How do you lock the facts?

Say the facts out loud. If you do not know the room, stop and ask. Do not let the chat pick a room that "sounds right."

Here are the only facts for this flyer. Do not add any.
Event: [name]
Date: [weekday, month, day, year]
Time: [start] to [end]
Place: [address or room]
Who it is for: [who]
Contact: [name and one phone, email, or link]
Must say: [one line, such as "free" or "bring a donation", only if true]
Must not say: [anything you are not allowed to promise]

Send that first. If the reply adds a fact, delete the reply and send the note again with the line "Do not add facts. Repeat my list back."

How do you draft the headline and the short lines?

Now ask for words, not a picture. You want a headline a person can read from a few feet away, and almost no body text.

Using only the facts I just sent, write:
1. Three headlines, each under 8 words
2. One subline under 15 words
3. The date, time, and place as three separate lines I can copy
4. A last line with the contact

Do not add slogans that promise a result.
Do not invent a price, a sponsor, or a dress code.

Pick one headline. Change any word you would not say yourself. The chat is not the host. You are.

How do you make the layout, then read the letters?

If ChatGPT or Gemini shows a way to create an image, you can ask for a simple layout. Say where the words go. Ask for large type and lots of empty space.

Make a simple portrait flyer.
Big headline: [your headline]
Under it: [subline]
Then these lines, spelled exactly:
[date]
[time]
[place]
[contact]
Plain background. No extra words. No tiny print.

Zoom in until the letters are large on your screen. Compare them to your fact note, character by character. If any word is wrong, do not try to "fix" it with another image prompt and hope. Image tools often misspell again.

Use the picture only as a background, or do not use it. Put the real words in text boxes.

If you do not see an image control, skip the picture. That is normal. Check the product's current plan page if you want to know why the button is missing. Do not pay from a guess this guide did not verify.

How do you put the words in a tool where you can edit them?

Open Canva's free plan, or another free design tool you already use. Start from a blank page, not a template stuffed with sample names.

1. Paste your headline into a text box. Make it the largest text.
2. Paste the date, time, and place as their own lines.
3. Paste the contact line.
4. Delete every sample phone number, sample address, and "your text here."
5. Read the page against your fact note. Say the date out loud.

Print one copy, or send the file to yourself and open it on your phone. Small type that looked fine on a laptop can fall apart on a phone.

What should you check before you use it?

Answer each line below. If one is still a no, do not use the result yet.

Director check: look before you use it

• Does the date on the flyer match the date in your note, including the year? One wrong digit sends people to the wrong day.
• Is the address a place you have seen, not a place the chat suggested?
• Are there any words on the page that were not in your fact list? Take them off.
• Can you edit the date by clicking it? If the date is baked into a picture, set the picture aside and retype the date.

What is one extra tip?

A flyer is one page of a bigger plan. For a party, do the schedule first in Plan a kids' birthday party, then make the flyer from facts you already checked. When a tool sounds sure about a detail you did not type, use Catch facts the AI made up.