#  Other Applications & Softwares  > Word Formatting & General >  >  generate certificates from templates/forms

## Imad1965

Hi,

My uncle runs a forklift school and he asked me to help him with his business.  Right now, he manually creates a small certification ID for any student that passes his specific forklift training.  My uncle uses Coreldraw 6 to do this manually and it is time consuming.  The Corel template was created for him by someone at the local mall.

I informed my uncle that there must be a way where I could create a template in Word whereby he fills in all the required fields (first name, last name, issued date, expirey date, type of forklift certification, etc) along with a digital photo of the individual and once he is finished, it transfers all of this information(including the photo) to a ID template that can be printed and laminated.  This ID tag will be slightly bigger that a business card.  This will make my uncle's life easier as he will only have to fill out the form and import the picture into the form.  The printing of the ID tag will occur automatically and thus my uncle will not have to touch Coreldraw.

My question to you all is the following:  Is Word the best application to accomplish this or is there a better Office 2007/2010 application to do this (a friend says that MS Publisher or even Excel would be able to do it) ?

Thank you all in advance for any of your input.

----------


## jeffreybrown

_Your post does not comply with Rule 1 of our Forum_ RULES. *Your post title should accurately and concisely describe your problem, not your anticipated solution.*

Use terms appropriate to a Google search. Poor thread titles, like Please Help, Urgent, Need Help, Formula Problem, Code Problem, and Need Advice will be addressed according to the OP's experience in the forum: If you have less than 10 posts, expect (and respond to) a request to change your thread title. If you have 10 or more posts, expect your post to be locked, so you can start a new thread with an appropriate title.

*To change a Title on your post, click EDIT then Go Advanced and change your title, if 2 days have passed ask a moderator to do it for you.*

----------


## Imad1965

Hi Jeff,

I am a new user so forgive me for my lack of understanding of the rules.  I posted to enquire about which application would be the best fit to allow me to accomplish the task as described. I was not looking at how it can be done but by what means.  I have little experience with Excel or Publisher but I do know some Word.  Is someone were to respond that Excel or Publisher is the most appropriate application to complete the task, then I would pursue that course of action.  I could use your guidance on this.  Can you offer my any suggestions as to how to word it or where in the forum would be the best place to post a generic question of this nature?

Regards, Imad

----------


## abousetta

Hello Imad,

Jeff means that you should change your title to something like 'generate certificates from template'. That way anyone who searches online for a similar problem might come across any solutions provided here.

Hope this helps.

abousetta

----------


## abousetta

Thanks for updating your title.

Now back to your question. Yes, you can create a word template or a template in Excel and use this as the basis of the project. You would create an excel sheet with the information that will be used for each certificate (e.g. name, id, year of graduation, etc.) and the location of the person's picture. Using vba, the certificate template would be used to generate certificates that are ready for printing. 

To begin with, can you upload the current template you are using and an excel sheet with columns for each item that you fill in the certificate. Then we should be able to help you write up the vba code to automate the project.

Hope this helps.

abousetta

----------


## macropod

FWIW, using Word, all of the certificate production can be done via its mailmerge tools, using either a Word table or an Excel workbook as the data source. The actual pictures would need to be stored as separate files, not in either mailmerge source.

There would be no need for "vba code to automate the project".

----------


## abousetta

Paul absolutely right. MailMerge is an excellent method to generate that does not require vba and be picked up pretty quickly. All you would have to do is manually add the pictures and print.

abousetta

----------


## macropod

> All you would have to do is manually add the pictures and print.



You don't even have to do that - the mailmerge can handle that too, quite easily.

----------

