MyCanvas Reviews 

Very easy to order. Shipped faster than I expected. Wonderful results.

It was easy to create the poster, pulling data and pictures in from Ancestry. I was surprised how quickly it shipped and was delivered (same week). The final product looked amazing!

Much of the info on the poster is missing. My nephew is very upset. I am very upset. I have to enter all of that info again. I don't want to pay for the poster again.

I started making a book at one price it raised twice before I got the book done. The last time it raised was the day I was sent it in and was still not given the discount, even though it was shown on the opening page I will never do business with your company, and I have told others to find other routes

Disappointed the book only allows 7 generations each. And the cost is a bit expensive. What I do like is the extra room on pages to add info.

To take one look at the poster in the frame you'd think it was really nice. However, I had to send back the rails I'd bought (not from My Canvas) for it as it's not canvas at all! Never seen canvas. It's thick ish paper, at best. It wouldn't have worked in rails at all. I have 7 generations on mine, I don't know what the smaller posters are like.
I like the design but it's extremely hard work to put the picture together, My Canvas only do the first four generations. Unless you're good at 'computering' it's super fiddly and extremely time consuming. At least the Customer Services were helpful and it arrived quickly from the States.
Not impressed with My Canvas though - My Paper would be a better name.

LOVE My Canvas - their products, their support, first class! I have just ordered the poster rods and they arrived quickly and look amazing. I can't wait to do more family projects.

Yes l did have software problems but the problem was always dealt with promptly. I received the book which had a couple small problems (separation in a couple spots at back to cover). I contacted MyCanvas and they did a reprint which l received in 10 days. I feel they are great to deal with and dealt with any issues professionally and promptly.

Ready to work on my family history since my husbands is done.

I am a professional genealogist and successfully created numerous books with the "old MyCanvas." Since their new roll-out, there have been problems with the software and poor customer service. Queries take days to be answered, and I haven't been given a satisfactory answer regarding when the software problems might be remedied. Elements of the book have disappeared with no helpful explanation from the company. There is no way to make a PDF of pages for editing purposes or to share with a client.
If you have yet to start a book, please don't waste your time or money with this company! Extremely disappointed!

Awful! Ditto what others say. Can't customize. I hate that they got rid of the previous version. It worked great. I understand why but they should have kept the format similar. This one is a nightmare to work with and I will not buy anything from My Canvas until they come up with a better program. Feel like I have been rip off because the pdf file they gave me of all the books I ordered are not editable because they are all photos of my book pages. All the work I did customizing the books was lost! I have been trying to use the new version for 2 yrs now and I give up!

I feel it is important for me to let others know up front that I worked for a software & web design company for a number of years. While I’m not a programmer (I’m on the creative side) I do understand how things should function. When I tell you that MyCanvas has a terrible problem with their Ancestry integration, please - believe me! You’ll be glad you did.

I’m not exaggerating when I say that it took me 2 months to finish putting a family history book together? Why? Because this program is not made for you to do an in-depth family history project. Or at least not a particularly interesting one if you want to rely on work you already did in Ancestry. It is beyond glitchy. There would be updates to MyCanvas, but it was only on the day I was finalising everything that it would actually allow you to refresh/regenerate say, a family group sheet, with updated changes in Ancestry. I was going through & having to do them by hand.

More than that, this book is expensive. It would have totalled over $300 had I added extra pages as I’d initially planned. 20 pages will not get you very far if you want to create a family history for close, immigrant families. Quite honestly, if you do the bare minimum & only use the pre-determined sheets they generate, you’ll have enough room for a family of 3. More than that & you’ll be paying by the page.

The Individual Timeline page should be interesting. Initially, I’d looked forward to that for my family as we made money in shipping. Seeing the various ports we sailed in & out of & on what dates could have been cool. Nope. It doesn’t actually put that data in a timeline. It doesn’t put a number of significant events in a timeline! The birth of a child? No. What information it takes from Ancestry seems to be from an incredibly small remit. In theory, you could add these yourself, however, this program is like a poorly programmed version of InDesign but with a bizarrely hard learning curve for what it is. Yes, you can add a bunch of embellishments, but you have to have computer knowledge. My mother could not use this program because it was so buggy & you couldn’t make simple changes.

MyCanvas does not automatically transfer records - you choose them. This is reasonable enough, however, keep in mind that every detail you add is going to cost a page (essentially). For families that are like mine with some significant age gaps (ex I’m in my early 30s but my papou was born in the late 1800s) and a lot of people, this quickly becomes an incredibly time consuming task. By the time I’d finished, I can honestly say that I could have designed my own layout & essentially put the information in using a spreadsheet export/import. Of course, after having spent the time, you don’t want to lose the work.

Prior to finishing, mycanvas had not been clear on the number of pages allowed. It sounded like you could do up to 200 pages for $90. That seemed reasonable. I about died when I added it to my cart & it was over $300. When I removed the extra pages, the total was close to $270 with shipping & tax. I’d initially planned to purchase more than one, but I did not.

Tip before adding to cart: pay attention to the alert that tells you there are pages that may be cut off. In most cases, you’ve probably missed something. If you look & can’t figure it out, drag the cursor over the entire page. It will highlight every text or photo box & you will be able to see what is/is not in the cut off zone.

I will say that my end result turned out beautifully. I’m impressed by the quality of printing, especially when some of the photos I included are over 100 years old, others are close & they were essentially photos of photos. You would think they were digital & they look better than many early digital cameras. My papou’s documents are so readable, it’s truly impressive. I am sending the book I created to someone as a gift, so I will not get to enjoy it, but I am very happy with it & i hope they will be as well.

I believe MyCanvas needs to iron out the kinks in their programming. I’d wanted to end the book with a descendant tree & I’d figured out a way to do it even when MyCanvas lacked the option. Unfortunately, I went to do it & it wasn’t even generating the descendants correctly. Some people showed as having no children even when they did & others were just incorrect. You need to think like an editor when you’re working with this site because I guarantee things will be incorrect if you aren’t paying attention. Under no circumstances would I suggest you auto generate a book, give it a skim & think you should be good. In my experience, you won’t be… even if things looked fine a couple days ago.

The price is high for the amount of work you put in. If everything was automated & you had the flexibility of creative suite, maybe it would be justified. Definitely mixed feelings, but the final product is very nice.

You aren't given a choice of silhouettes to use when creating a family tree poster. The default silhouettes weren't correct for my family. The only way to fix this is to manually change each person's silhouettes.

This is the first time I've used mycanvas. I used them because I have an account with ancestry and it was suggested to use them to create a book. We are presenting the book at our family reunion to my uncle. This issue is, the book we received has another family in the first half of the book. I don't know who the family is, but it is of an Australian family and then the second half of the book is of my actual family who is Mexican. The book itself is actually good quality which is why I put 2 stars. This is supposed to be a very special gift from my entire family and is supposed to be presented to my uncle as he is the last living uncle in the family. I paid $120 for the express delivery and received the book in 10 days. I have 2 weeks for this book to be resolved and there is not a working customer service phone number. There is only an email. I will update this review if they can resolve this huge issue in time. Very disappointed!!!

I've ordered 2 books and they've had to reprint both because of mistakes THEY made. I'm still waiting for the second order - it's been a month. They offered a refund but I've spent so many, many hours formatting with their program and I can't transfer that to another company.

I am new to mycanvas and think the software is great. I overlayed information on my slides by mistake and don't know how to bring forward the two slides from the back up files. I have sent numerous emails to this firm to no avail. I read the reviews and am now very disappointed I ever spent this much time on a book that will most likely be disappointing.

A very nice job on quality paper. I only wish you did more generations than, what is it, seven?

Found mistakes I made, even after editing but more were made in the transfer of data. Will not re-order, but will make a new book and do way more editing before next purchase.

My ancestry book came out great!!! I was able to add in pages for photos, census records and make it like a scrapbook. Mine was over 300 pages long and the pages are colorful and good quality. I was able to transfer info from Ancestry.com. I will be making more books!!!!

Concern over costs and quality
I have finally finished the books but a bit shocked how expensive they are. They have taken me so long to do. I have tried to cut down on the pages to make it a bit cheaper. I have done 2 books for two Family lines. I did not realise one book alone can cost so much as it is in US dollars which I did not realise as I am from Australia. One book was coming at 480 AU dollars. Yikes. I bought one book previously as a gift to a family member and the quality was not the best for what they are charging. For example some table timelines and family tree tables look slightly pixelated and out of focus.