certify produces formal landscape PDF certificates with configurable color themes, optional logos, decorative borders, laurels, and corner ornaments. The package is built on grid only — no LaTeX or Quarto installation is required.

Getting started

A step-by-step walkthrough, written for occasional R users, is included as a vignette:

vignette("certify")

Installation

Install the released version from CRAN:

install.packages("certify")

Or install the development version from GitHub. build_vignettes = TRUE is worth including: without it the vignette is not built, and vignette("certify") finds nothing.

# install.packages("remotes")
remotes::install_github("cwimpy/certify", build_vignettes = TRUE)
vignette("certify")   # the walkthrough

Usage

library(certify)
make_certificate(
  path          = "jane_doe.pdf",
  recipient     = "Jane A. Doe",
  title         = "Certificate of Achievement",
  award_name    = "Outstanding Student",
  organization  = "University of Somewhere",
  program       = "Bachelor of Arts in Political Science",
  citation      = paste(
    "in recognition of exceptional dedication, scholarship,",
    "and service to the academic community."
  ),
  academic_year = "2025-2026",
  signers       = list(
    list(name = "Alex Chair, Ph.D.", title = "Department Chair")
  )
)

Themes

Three preset palettes are included:

cert_theme_classic() — navy and gold on parchment (default)
cert_theme_formal() — black and silver on cream
cert_theme_warm() — burgundy and gold on warm cream

For full control, build a custom palette with cert_theme():

my_theme <- cert_theme(
  primary      = "#003366",
  primary_dark = "#001f3f",
  accent       = "#c0a062",
  background   = "#fbf8f1"
)
make_certificate(
  path      = "custom.pdf",
  recipient = "Recipient Name",
  theme     = my_theme
)

A whole roster at once

make_certificates() takes a data frame and writes one PDF per row.

roster <- read.csv("roster.csv")   # a `recipient` column is all you need
make_certificates(
  roster,
  dir          = "certificates",
  organization = "University of Somewhere",
  signers      = list(
    list(name = "Alex Chair, Ph.D.", title = "Department Chair")
  )
)

Columns named after make_certificate() arguments (award_name, citation, and so on) vary per certificate; everything else stays constant.

Paper size

paper accepts "letter" (the default, 11 x 8.5 landscape), "legal", "tabloid", "a3", "a4", and "a5". The design scales with the page. width and height override it for anything else.

make_certificate(path = "award.pdf", recipient = "Jane A. Doe", paper = "a4")

Two signers and a custom logo

A logo must be a PNG. It replaces organization in the header and is scaled to fit inside a box logo_height by logo_width inches (2 by 4.5 by default), keeping its proportions: square logos are limited by height, wide wordmarks by width.

make_certificate(
  path      = "award.pdf",
  recipient = "Recipient Name",
  title     = "Certificate of Recognition",
  citation  = "in grateful recognition of years of devoted service.",
  signers   = list(
    list(name = "President Name", title = "President"),
    list(name = "Secretary Name", title = "Secretary")
  ),
  logo      = "path/to/your_logo.png",
  paper     = "a4",
  theme     = cert_theme_warm()
)