The certificate designer is where you build and edit certificate templates. To open it, navigate to Certificates > Templates and click Add New, or click Edit on an existing template.

The Canvas Is the PDF

The designer canvas is true size: it has exactly the dimensions of the finished certificate, and everything you place on it renders in the PDF at print quality in exactly the same position. There is no separate “export” step that reinterprets your layout. What you arrange on screen is what recipients download.

Layout of the Designer

• Elements palette (left): Click an element type to add it to the canvas. See the Certificate Elements article for what each type does.
• Canvas (center): Your certificate at true size. Click an element to select it; drag to move; use the handles to resize.
• Properties panel (right): Settings for the selected element, like text content, font, colors, and alignment.
• Toolbar (top): Back to Templates, undo and redo, zoom controls, rulers, the Merge field display toggle (show sample values or raw tokens on the canvas), Preview, and save and publish actions. The Design and Award tabs switch between the visual editor and the trigger settings.

Working with Elements

• Drag elements to position them, or use the arrow keys to nudge the selected element by 1 point (hold Shift for 10 points).
• Press Delete or Backspace to remove the selected element.
• Shift-click elements, or drag a box across empty canvas, to select several at once. Selected elements move, nudge, and delete together, and an align toolbar appears with options to align and distribute them.
• Guides appear while you drag to snap elements to the page edges, the page center, other elements, and matching margins from opposite page edges. Hold Alt to drag without snapping. See Aligning and Spacing Elements for the full set of alignment tools.
• Use Bring to front, Send backward, and Send to back to control stacking when elements overlap.
• Undo and redo cover every change, so it is safe to experiment.

Certificate Size

Each template has a page size (Letter or A4) and an orientation (landscape or portrait). New templates start from the default size chosen in Certificates > Settings > Appearance, and every starter design is available in both sizes and both orientations.

Preview

The Preview button renders a sample PDF using the same renderer that produces real certificates, with sample data filled into your merge fields. Because the preview and the finished product share one rendering pipeline, the preview is a faithful representation of what a recipient receives.

Draft, Published, and Editing Later

Templates start as drafts. A template must be Published before it can issue certificates, whether by trigger or manually.

Important: Certificates that have already been issued are never changed by template edits. Each certificate snapshots its full design and data at the moment it is issued, so a credential always looks exactly as it did the day it was earned. Template edits only affect certificates issued afterward.