The short answer: in Figma, draw one 1080 × 1350 frame per slide and line the frames up in a single row, left to right, on a page of their own. Select them, choose Main menu → File → Export frames to PDF… and you get one PDF with a page per frame. Check the page order, then upload the PDF to LinkedIn as a document. All of it works on the free Starter plan.
The size to type into Figma
| Field | Portrait 4:5 (most carousels) | Square 1:1 |
|---|---|---|
| W | 1080 | 1080 |
| H | 1350 | 1080 |
Figma measures frames in pixels, so the numbers go straight into the W and H fields. The Frame tool also offers presets, including a Social Media group, but typing the size is quicker than looking for a match.
Why 4:5: people read LinkedIn on a phone, and a 1080 × 1350 page is a quarter taller than a square one at the same width, so your text gets more of the screen. LinkedIn publishes no carousel size; the convention follows from the 1080 px width it recommends for images and the 4:5 maximum it displays them at. See LinkedIn carousel size for the rest.
1. Set up a page and the first frame
- Add a new page to your file just for this carousel. Keeping it alone on its page matters at export time.
- Press F (or A) for the Frame tool and click once on the canvas.
- In the right sidebar, type 1080 in W and 1350 in H.
- Give the frame a background fill and name it 01. Numbered names make the order easy to check later.
2. Build the slides in one row
- Design one content slide completely before you copy it: margins (layout guides help), heading size, body size. Then make the copies. With the Frame tool active, hover the frame and click the + on its side: Figma adds a frame next to it and nudges the others over, so the row stays tidy. Cmd/Ctrl+D duplicates too, and Option/Alt with the + adds a blank frame of the same size.
- Keep every slide a top-level frame, directly on the canvas. Do not wrap the carousel in one big frame as a board: Figma's support team says frames nested in another frame export as a single PDF page of the parent.
- Keep one row, left to right, with slide 1 on the left. Figma's own sources do not agree on how the PDF is ordered: its 2018 blog says by position on the canvas, from the top left to the bottom right, and some guides say by the Layers panel. Order the Layers panel to match, slide 1 at the top, and either way you are covered.
- Keep one idea per slide. For type sizes, contrast and margins, see LinkedIn carousel design; for the first, middle and last slides, see how to structure a LinkedIn carousel.
Fonts are not a worry here. Figma exports text as glyphs, so the PDF looks the same on every screen, whatever typeface you used. Readers can still select and copy the text; they just cannot edit it.
3. Export frames to PDF
- Check the carousel page: only the slide frames should sit at the top level. Reports disagree on whether the command exports the frames you selected or everything on the page; with nothing else there, you get the same file either way.
- Select all the slide frames.
- Open the main menu (the Figma logo) and choose File → Export frames to PDF…
- Save the file, open it and page through: every slide once, in order, and nothing else.
Figma's Help Center does not document this command; the path comes from Figma's support staff on its community forum and from Figma's blog. Two lookalikes do something else. A PDF setting in the Export section of the right sidebar, added to several frames, gives one PDF per frame, as users report. File → Export (Shift+Cmd+E or Shift+Ctrl+E) writes every selection that has export settings as a separate file. LinkedIn takes one document per post, so you need the multi-page file. If the order keeps coming out wrong, community plugins that export frames to PDF let you set it by hand. Or export the frames as PNG and put them in order in our free images to LinkedIn carousel PDF tool, which makes the PDF in your browser.
Figma Slides is not a shortcut here. It exports decks in slide order, but frames can only be copied into Figma Slides when their shape is between 4:3 and 16:9, and a 4:5 carousel is outside that range.
4. Post it on LinkedIn
LinkedIn does not take Figma files, so upload the PDF: start a post, add a document, give it a title and post. The steps for a computer, the app and Pages are in how to post a carousel on LinkedIn.
What the free plan allows
Everything above. Frames and export are available on every Figma plan, including the free Starter plan. Starter limits you to three Figma Design files in the team folder, with unlimited drafts, and has no team libraries; none of that stops you from exporting a carousel. If you export from someone else's file, view access is enough, unless the owner has restricted copying.
Figma pitfalls and fixes
| Problem | Fix |
|---|---|
| All the slides land on one PDF page | The slide frames sit inside another frame. Move them out so each one is directly on the canvas |
| Pages are out of order | Line the frames up in one row, left to right, match the Layers panel to it and export again |
| The PDF has extra pages | Something else is on the page. Move everything except the slides to another page |
| A slide's background is missing | The fill's Show in exports box is unticked. Tick it in the Fill section of the right sidebar |
| Photos look soft | Figma exports images in PDFs at Medium quality by default, and PDFs only at 1x. Use large source images, raise the quality in the frame's Export section and check whether the new PDF improves: Figma does not say whether Export frames to PDF reads that setting |
| A blend effect looks wrong | Plus darker and Plus lighter blend modes are not supported in PDF. Use another blend mode |
The shorter way
cropdot skips the frames and the export puzzle. Type a topic or paste your notes and it drafts the slides, aiming for 6 to 10 with a hook on the first one. Export → Download PDF gives one page per slide at 1080 × 1350, every page the same size, with no nesting or ordering to get wrong.
Figma is far more capable as a design tool: any layout, any detail, your own fonts. cropdot has six fonts, no custom font upload and eight templates. If your carousels follow a design system of your own, Figma is the right place for them; if the writing is what slows you down, start in cropdot.
Sources
- Figma Help Center: Frames in Figma Design, Export static designs from Figma, Export formats and settings, Starter plan overview, Export from Figma Slides, Copy slide decks from Figma Design to Figma Slides.
- Figma Community forum: Export multi-page PDF doesn't work anymore, Export a single multi-page PDF from selected frames.
- Our path to creating the highest quality PDF exporter, Figma blog (2018).
- LinkedIn Help: Upload and share documents.
Checked on October 2, 2026.