EasyBadge – Card Design & Printing FAQs

EasyBadge has been designed to make creating ID cards as simple as possible. Once you’re in the program, click ‘Change the Design’ button. This opens a menu allowing you to change and edit your template and create an all-new design if you require one. 

To edit a card design in EasyBadge, click on he ‘Change the Design button. This opens the card design menu. Click into ‘Edit a Design’ to make changes to your card design. 

If you’ve got a new card design that you want to set as your default ID card for your database, follow the steps outlined below: 

1. Press ‘F5’ on your keyboard when you’re in the EasyBadge program: This will activate a split view.                         
2. Choose the required design, and then tick ‘All Starred records’ and click ‘Confirm’.        
3. Star ALL the records in the database by clicking the star that’s within the green header at the top of the table.
4. This changes all the records to the design you’ve set. You can now set this as your default design by clicking ‘Main Menu > Modify Database > Manage Card Designs.                                                                                                                                                                                                         
5. Click on the design that needs to be the default design and use the up arrow on the right to move it to the top of the list. This design will now be assigned to any new records that are added. 

EasyBadge gives you flexibility with your ID card designs, with various text formatting options available. In this article, we’ll run through the main text formatting options on offer and how to implement them on your card designs. To format text on your card design, just follow the steps below.

1. Click ‘Change the Design’ button in the middle of the EasyBadge program window.

2. From this menu, you can choose the design you want by clicking the bullet point to the top right of the card preview and clicking ‘Edit a Design’ as shown below.                                                                                                                                                   

3. Next, click the text object you want to format. Once selected the text box will have blue control points around it. This allows you to drag it to a new position if required.

4. The text formatting options for the selected text box will appear on the right-hand side in the properties panel. In the example below, the fields ‘forename’ and ‘surname’ are linked by using square brackets. For example [Forename] [Surname].

5. Here’s a full list of text formatting options for EasyBadge. They’re each explained below.

• Bold, Italics, Underline = Change the visual formatting of the font.
• Left, Centre, Right paragraph Align = Position the text within the bounding area of the text box.
• Word Wrap = Nudges text onto a new line, this is useful of you are trying to print long job titles and the font needs to stay the same point size.
• Auto Adjust Object Size = Changes the bounding box to accommodate a longer text string
• Don’t print outside grab points = Crops any text off so it is not displayed outside the bounding area of a text box.
• Text Orientation = Rotates text 90, 180, 270, degrees on the design area.
• Shrink to fit = Reduces the point size of the text to so it fits within the bounding box. This is useful of you always want long text strings like job titles to appear on one line.
• Extra Properties = These settings allow you to further adjust the vertical and horizontal line spacing for a paragraph of text.
• Colour 1 = Changes the main colour of the selected text.
• Colour 2 = The colour of the shadow if you use the shadow option.
• Shadow Enable = Creates a basic drop shadow effect on text.
• Size / Position = Allows you to specify exact coordinates of the position of text on the card.
• Note: When adding any text box to the design always make sure the bounding box fills the full area available on your design to print the line of text. This ensures long names and titles get formatted correctly. It is a good idea to test your template by adding a long name and job title to a record to ensure the formatting will be correct.

You can quickly and efficiently make ID card designs with graphics using EasyBadge. These include logos. 

1. Click ‘Changes the Design’ in the centre of the EasyBadge program window.                                                                     
2. From this menu you can change the design selected by clicking ‘Edit a Design’.                                         
3. Now click the new graphic button on the toolbar and browse to the file you need to load into your card design.                                               
4. Click the logo you want to use and open it.                                                                                     
5. Move the object into position and click once to drop it onto the design area, then use the blue control points to resize the logo if needed.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            

EasyBadge software allows you to add a toggle ‘on/off’ fields to your card design. To do this, carry out the following: 

1. Click the main EasyBadge menu button to the top left of the program window. 
2. Click ‘Add Field’.                                                                                                                                                                                   
3. Select ‘Yes’ or No’ followed by the ‘Create’ button.                                                                                                                     
4. You need to name the field so it describes the icon or text item. As an example, we’ve used ‘Hemet Required’. Click ‘OK’ after you’ve set this and the database will restart.                                                                                                                                                                 
5. Click the menu button again and select ‘Modify Field’ In the properties table, change ‘Accreditation’ to True’ and then click ‘Save’.
6. Click the ‘Change the Design’ button.                                                                                                                                     
7. Select the design you want to edit and click the ‘Edit this Design’ button.                                                                               
8. Now, add your desired object. This might be a textbox, graphic, other visual or even a barcode. Position this where you want it to appear and then right-click and select ‘ID’ from the menu.                                                                                                                                                               
9. If your field is called ‘Helmet Required’ as it is here, you should entier ‘Helmet Required On’ in the ID properties box like in the example below.                                                                                                                                                                                                                   
10. From here, every time you edit a record and check the field to ‘Yes’ or ‘no’ the required object should appear or disappear as required.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         

You can add coloured boxes to an ID card design quickly with EasyBadge. To add one: 

1. Click the ‘Change the Design’ button in the centre of the EasyBadge program window.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         
2. From this menu, you’ll be able to change the selected design by clicking ‘Editing a Design’.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             
3. Click the ”New Box’ button on the toolbar. Move the pointer onto the card design area and drag a box shape into your desired location.
4. The properties of this box will appear on the right-hand side in the properties panel, and you’ll be able to change the colour and effect.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

For reference, some ways you can change its effect include: 

• Colour = Changes the primary colour
• Gradient = Secondary colour in a gradient
• Gradient fill = Enables the gradient
• Corner Roundness = Gives the box a rounded edge
• Border thickness = Adds a stroke to the edge of the box
• Shadow Enable = Adds a simple shadow effect
• Size and Position = Sets the co-ordinates for the position of the box

To add a variable field to your card: 

1. Click ‘Change the Design’                                                                                                                                                                                               
2. This menu gives the ability to edit a design. Bullet point the one you wish to change, and once’ it’s selected, click ‘Edit a Design’.
3. When your design is on the screen, click the ‘New Text’ icon on the left toolbar and drop the textbox onto the card design.
4. To add text, click the ‘New Text’ icon on the left toolbar and drop the text box onto the card design itself.
5. There are other options for formatting text, including ‘Shrink to Fit’ and ‘Word Wrap’. You can find a full list in the font selector. 
6. Once you’re edited your design to your requirements, click the ‘save’ button on the toolbar and click out of the menu via the ‘X’.

The Zero-Suppress function in EasyBadge is a useful tool that removes leading zeros from data appearing on your printed cards. These can include membership numbers, staff numbers and barcodes. 

To activate the zero-suppress function in EasyBadge:

1. In the card design window, select ‘Change a Design’. When prompted, select the design you wish to add a zero-suppress function to.
2. Click on the ‘A’ text box or barcode you want to use the zero suppress function on so you can see the properties on the right-hand panel. You need to add [Int] to your formatting to apply the function.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   
3. You can see this in action in the above example. We’ve used a staff number field. By wrapping [Int] around (StaffNumber), 00012345 turns into 12345 when a card is printed. The picture below shows a barcode using the zero-suppress function. 

Adjusting the aspect ratio of an image in EasyBadge is easy. When you’re in the Card Design section, the card’s properties appear in the right-hand pane. Be sure to select ‘Free’ in the aspect ratio drop-down, and this will allow you to alter the image box to suit the blank area on a card.