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Certificate Templates

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Certificate templates are the visual designs Learnomy prints when a student earns a certificate. You design a template once using the built-in designer, then assign it to any course that awards certificates.

Overview

The Certificate Designer is a canvas-based editor that lets you compose a PDF-ready certificate layout without any external tools. It lives at Learnomy > Certificates > Design New Template (direct link: wp-admin/admin.php?page=learnomy-certificate-designer). Each template stores its design as JSON and renders to a PDF or printable HTML page when a certificate is issued.

Opening the designer

  1. Go to Learnomy > Certificates.

    Certificates list header

  2. Click Design New Template in the top-right corner. To edit an existing template, use the Edit row action in the table.

    Certificate designer

The designer opens with a canvas on the left and a sidebar panel on the right.

Template panel: name, orientation, and background

The Template panel at the top of the sidebar controls the canvas itself.

Designer sidebar panel

  1. Enter a Name for the template. This name appears in the course settings dropdown so you can tell templates apart.
  2. Choose Orientation: Landscape (default) or Portrait.
  3. Set a Background Color using the color picker. The default is white (#ffffff).
  4. To use an image as the background, click Select next to Background Image. This opens the WordPress media library. Choose an uploaded image (a certificate border frame, a branded pattern, or a full bleed illustration) and click Select. The canvas updates immediately. To remove the image, click Clear.

Choosing a pre-built template

The Pre-built Templates panel gives you three starting points:

Template Description
Classic Centered serif layout with a decorative gold border
Modern Left-aligned layout with a bold accent bar
Minimal Clean layout with generous whitespace

Click a card to load its element arrangement onto the canvas. You can then change any element after loading.

Adding and editing elements

The Add Elements panel has six element types:

Button What it adds
+ Text A static text block (course name label, "Certificate of Completion" heading, etc.)
+ Merge Tag Dynamic text that fills in at issue time (student name, course name, issue date, credential ID, site name)
+ Image / Logo An uploaded image such as a logo or signature image
+ QR Code A QR code that links to the public verification URL for this certificate
+ Line / Border A horizontal or vertical decorative line
+ Signature A signature block with a name and title below the signature image

Click any button to add an element at a default position on the canvas. Click an element on the canvas to select it.

Editing a selected element

When an element is selected, the Selected Element panel appears in the sidebar.

Designer header with save and preview controls

The panel shows editable properties for the selected element (position, size, font, color, content, and element-specific options). Use the Duplicate button to copy the element, or Delete to remove it.

Elements are absolutely positioned on the canvas. Drag to reposition them.

Saving and previewing

  • Click Save Template to save the current canvas state. The autosave indicator shows the last-saved time.
  • Click Preview PDF (active after the first save) to generate a sample PDF with placeholder merge-tag values so you can see the final output before assigning the template to a course.

Assigning a template to a course

A certificate template only issues certificates when it is assigned to a course with certificates enabled.

  1. Go to Learnomy > Courses and open the course editor for the course you want.
  2. Open the Completion and Certificate section in the course settings panel.
  3. Check Award a certificate on completion.
  4. The Certificate Template dropdown appears. Select the template you just designed from the list. Use the search box to find a template by name if you have many.
  5. Save the course.

If no templates exist yet, the course settings show a link to the designer instead of the dropdown.

Tips

  • A template can be assigned to multiple courses at the same time.
  • If a student's course is deleted after a certificate was issued, the certificate remains verifiable. The course shows as "Course archived" on the student's certificates page, but the credential ID and verification URL continue to work.
  • The QR Code element encodes the public verification URL (/verify/<uuid>). Adding one makes the printed or downloaded PDF self-verifying without needing the website open.
  • Background images render at their full canvas size. Use landscape-ratio images for landscape templates and portrait-ratio images for portrait templates.

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