Playbook
A power-user walkthrough for operators running serious volume: design once, map a spreadsheet, mix static and dynamic fields, and export thousands of print-ready IDs, badges, and certificates without the batch falling apart at row 4,000.
Every batch starts with the physical product. Pick CR80 landscape for staff and contractor badges, CR80 portrait for student IDs, A4 landscape for course certificates, or the event badge preset for lanyards. The Studio sets the canvas to 300 DPI with a bleed and safe area baked in, so anything you drop inside the safe area survives PVC cutting and trimming. Choose the format first and the rest of the workflow stays consistent across batches.
Open Templates to pick from the curated marketplace of starter designs for IDs, badges, and certificates. Duplicate the closest match and edit it into your brand instead of starting from a blank canvas; you keep the field structure, QR binding, and safe-area placement that the starter was built around. Start blank only when none of the starters fit the form factor.
Use the layers panel to lock the background and brand crest so a stray drag does not push them off the bleed. Snap text fields to the grid for vertical rhythm. Bind a QR object to {REG_NO} or a full verification URL so every export carries its own scannable proof. Stick to one or two typefaces and keep your brand colors in the swatch panel so the team does not drift.
Every field has a source toggle. Set a field to static when it is the same on every card in the batch: company logo, signature, official seal, course title, issue date for a single ceremony. Set it to dynamic when it varies row by row: name, ID number, photo, expiry, class, grade. A typical training certificate ends up with a static signature image, a static seal, a static course name, and dynamic name, completion date, and QR payload. Toggle the source in the field inspector; the Studio renders both sources correctly on every preview and export.
Export a clean Excel or CSV with column headers in the first row. Lead with the identifier columns (REG_NO, ID_NO, or NAME), keep dates in a single format, and add a photo filename column when you are matching faces from a folder. Strip leading and trailing spaces — they ride into your cards if you do not. One header row, one row per credential, no merged cells.
Each dynamic image field has its own upload tile in the Data step, so a template with a portrait, a back-of-card logo, and a department crest can pull from three separate folders without collisions. Name the files after the column you want matched against — registration number, employee ID, or full name — and drag the whole folder onto the tile. The matcher handles casing, hyphens, and underscores so SS1-024.jpg still finds SS1/024.
The Studio auto-maps spreadsheet columns to fields by name. Walk the row table and confirm every column landed where you expect; a single misaligned column ruins the whole run. Open a handful of previews from the middle and end of the batch, not just row one. When you spot a typo in a single row, edit that row inline rather than going back to the spreadsheet — the override only affects that card.
The Generate step shows a live progress bar and a cancel button, so you can stop a 10,000-row run without freezing the tab. Export print sheets as 300 DPI PDFs when you are sending the batch to a card bureau or a Zebra/Evolis printer. Export per-row PNGs in a ZIP when downstream systems need one file per credential. For runs above a few thousand rows, split into batches of 2,000–3,000 to keep browser memory predictable. Free tier exports carry a watermark; Starter and All Access remove it.
Save every finished template to the cloud so the next batch starts in seconds. Duplicate before editing whenever the design changes meaningfully — you get a free version history and the old template stays usable for replacement cards mid-term. Note that only the template definition is stored; uploaded photos and spreadsheets stay on your machine and are never persisted.
Free tier is the studio with watermarked exports. ID Cards at ₦5,000 per month unlocks unlimited ID card generation, PDF print sheets, and watermark removal. All Access at ₦50,000 per year adds bulk certificates and bulk QR signing. Admins manage pricing and publish official marketplace templates from the admin dashboard — pricing changes go live as soon as you save.
