A Canva CV and resume alternative with no account

CV builds a CV (a résumé, in American usage) from a form. You fill in who you are, a summary and as many sections as you want; the page beside the form shows the CV as it will print, in one of five layouts and seven colours, on A4 or Letter, with a note of how many sheets it runs to. Print / PDF gives you the PDF, free and with no watermark. Saving a Word file, the plain text or the CV's own file is part of OBSCURA Pro. There is no account and nothing is uploaded; the CV is kept in this browser as you type.

What Canva is good at

Canva is an online design platform with a very large library of templates, CVs among posters, slides and social posts, and an editor where anything on the page can be moved, recoloured or swapped for an icon or a photograph. There is a free plan and a paid one. You work in your Canva account and your designs are kept there. If you want a CV that is a piece of graphic design, with the freedom to put anything anywhere, Canva gives you far more of that than a form ever will.

The trade is that a design tool treats a CV as a design. The words sit in boxes positioned by hand, so adding a job means nudging everything below it; a layout built from shapes and columns can come apart when a recruiter's system reads the text out of the PDF; and the document that holds your name, contact details, employers and dates lives in an online account.

What a form does instead

Here the words are the source and the layout follows from them. Each section is a list of entries with fields (the role, the organisation, the place, the dates, the lines under it), and the page is drawn again from the form every time a field changes, so adding a job pushes the rest down on its own and switching layout never loses anything. The CV is kept in this browser's storage on this device, saved as you type. It is not sent anywhere, because nothing here needs a server, and the page works with the network switched off once it has loaded.

The jobs, and whether they are here

The job	Here	Notes
A CV as a PDF, with no watermark	Yes	Print / PDF, free; only the CV is on the sheet
Choose a layout, and change it later	Yes	Classic, Modern, Compact, Sidebar and Plain; the words stay put when you switch
A colour to match	Yes	Seven accent colours
A4 or US Letter	Yes	The page shows where each sheet ends
Fit it on one page	Yes	Compact tightens the type and spacing
A version for application tracking systems	Yes	Plain: one column, no colour, no rules, no photograph
A photograph	Yes	Optional, squared and kept small; the form notes where one is not expected
Start from an old Word CV	Yes	Open reads its headings and bold lines into sections; check the dates
The same CV as a Word file	Yes	One column, editable anywhere; saving it is Pro
Paste it into an application form	Yes	Plain text export; saving it is Pro
Keep it and come back to it	Yes	Saved in this browser as you type; the .cv.json file opens it anywhere
Place anything anywhere, add icons and graphics	Not here	A form, not a canvas
Dozens of templates	Not here	Five layouts, each made to read well
Phrases written for you	Not here	The words are yours
A cover letter	Not here	Write it in Docs, free, and save it as Word or PDF

A CV is personal data

A CV is the most complete record of a person's working life that exists: a name, a phone number, an email address, every employer and school with the dates, and often a town and a photograph. Wherever it is kept, it is kept under that service's terms. Here it is kept in your browser on your device, and written to your disk only when you ask. The form asks for a town rather than an address, because a CV does not need one and everyone it is forwarded to would have it.

For a finished CV that should be judged without a name on it, BLIND takes the name and the identifying details out. For the Word file once it has been through a few hands, DOCSCRUB shows what it carries besides the words. Is it safe to upload your CV? goes through what the sites that collect them do with them.

What is free, and what is Pro

Filling in the form, choosing a layout, adding a photo and printing the CV to PDF are free, with no account and no watermark. Saving the Word file, the plain text and the CV's own .cv.json file is part of Pro. OBSCURA Pro is $144 a year, which is $12 a month, or $15 month to month, with 7 days free first; a day pass is $5 and a week pass $9. For a team it is $69 a month or $690 a year for up to 25 people, with 14 days free. For one application, a $5 day pass covers the Word file.

See the shape first. Open CV and press Sample to fill it with a made-up CV, switch between the five layouts, then clear it and write your own.

Questions people ask about A Canva CV and resume alternative: a builder with no account

Is there a Canva alternative for making a CV without an account?

Yes. CV on this site is a CV builder that runs in the browser tab: a form, five layouts, the page as it will print, and the CV out as a PDF, with no account and nothing uploaded. It is a form rather than a design canvas, so it has fewer ways to decorate a page and none of the work of arranging one.

Is the PDF free, and does it have a watermark?

The PDF is free and carries nothing but the CV. Print / PDF opens the browser's own print dialogue with the site hidden; choose Save as PDF. Saving a Word file, the plain text or the CV's own file is part of OBSCURA Pro, or a $5 day pass.

Will an application tracking system read it?

The Plain layout is made for that: one column, no colour, no rules and no photograph, so the text comes out of the PDF in reading order. The Word file is one column in every layout, for the same reason. No tool can promise how a particular employer's system will score a CV, and this one does not.

Can I add a photo?

Yes, if you want one. It is squared off and kept small, in this browser. The form says where a photograph is usual and where it is not: in Britain, Ireland, the United States, Canada and Australia a CV is expected without one. The Plain layout leaves it off.

Where is my CV kept?

In this browser on this device, saved as you type. Nothing is sent anywhere. To move it to another computer, save the .cv.json file and open it there; saving that file is part of Pro.

A Canva CV and resume alternative: a builder with no account