Certificates are built from elements: the pieces of text, imagery, and artwork you arrange on the designer canvas. This article describes each element type available in the palette.

Text

A block of text, like “Certificate of Completion” or “has successfully completed”. The properties panel controls the content, font family, font size, color, alignment (left, center, or right), line height, and bold and italic styling.

Text can also contain merge fields. Click Insert merge field in the properties panel to drop a field at the cursor, or type its token directly, and the line centers and wraps as one piece with the value filled in. “Expires: {{certificate.expiry_date}}” is the classic case. See Merge Fields in Text.

Merge Field

Dynamic text that fills in with real data each time a certificate is issued, like the recipient’s name, the issue date, or the course title. Merge fields have the same typography controls as text elements, which makes this element the right choice when a value stands on its own and needs its own styling, like the recipient name line on every starter template. A Credential ID merge field is also a clickable link to the verification page on issued PDFs. See Merge Fields for the full list of available fields.

Image / Logo

An image from your media library, typically your organization’s logo. Properties include the image selection, a fit mode (contain, cover, or stretch), and opacity. If a default logo is set in Certificates > Settings > Appearance, new image elements start with it.

Signature

An image element intended for a signature graphic. It works like the image element but starts from the default signature set in your Appearance settings, and starter templates include a signature slot positioned above the signer’s name.

Line / Shape

Vector artwork drawn directly into the PDF: lines, rectangles (with optional rounded corners), and ellipses. Properties include stroke color, stroke width, and fill color. Shapes are useful for borders, dividers, and decorative accents, and because they are vectors they stay crisp at any print size.

QR Code

A QR code that encodes the certificate’s unique verification link. Anyone who scans it lands on your site’s verification page with the credential already checked. On issued PDFs the QR code is also a clickable link to the same page, so a certificate opened on screen verifies with one click. The QR code is generated fresh for each issued certificate. You can set the foreground color; the background is transparent by default so the code sits cleanly on your design.

Background

The Background entry in the palette edits the page itself rather than adding a box to the canvas. You can set a solid background color or choose a full-page background image from your media library. Starter template backgrounds are built from recolorable vector shapes instead of baked-in images, which is why they can adopt your brand colors automatically.

Bundled Fonts

Six open-license font families ship with the plugin, each with real bold and italic faces:

• Playfair Display: A high-contrast serif for traditional, formal designs.
• EB Garamond: A classic old-style serif.
• Source Sans 3: A clean, versatile sans-serif.
• Quicksand: A rounded, friendly sans-serif.
• Great Vibes and Alex Brush: Script faces for names and flourishes.

All six are licensed under the SIL Open Font License and are embedded into your PDFs locally, so certificates render identically on every device with no external font services.