Just a quick note. I use Apple’s iWork for my word processing and spreadsheets. (Definitely more on this later!) But yesterday I had to make up some award type certificates for our school fundraiser.
I fired up Apple Pages, an lo and behold, could not find any appropriate templates included with the program. This is where Microsoft Office has an advantage. If you go to the Microsoft website you will find hundreds – maybe more – of free templates to use if you have a licensed copy of Microsoft Office. I am not sure if these work with Microsoft Office for Mac as well. But the point being is that there is a wealth of resources out there for Microsoft Office users and not so much for Apple Pages users.
I would love to see Apple offer up such a place on their website – it would make their iWork suite so much more usable. I know that Apple makes it easy to create these yourself, but sometimes when time is tight, it is nice to with something ready made.
Anyway, if you happen to need some award certificate templates, I did come across this site called Free Printable Certificates. They have a huge selection to choose from and that pretty much solved my problem. Enjoy!
UPDATE: The Mac App Store sells the Jumsoft Inspiration Set of iWork Pages Templates. There is a small set of certificates included in this package. I picked it up for about $10 – not sure what the current price is, but check it out. Not only will you get certificates but also a boat load of other professional looking documents for a great price.
UPDATE: All good things must come to an end. The previously mentioned site no longer provides editable certificates for free (thank you Mike, for pointing that out to me). Now you can print the PDF version for free but the version that you need for iWork Pages or Microsoft office is now $5.
And to add insult to injury - when you open the pdf in Preview – you cannot resave it in a different format – the file carries some kind of encryption. Now, honestly – I do believe in giving credit where credit is due and if someone took the time to create those certificates they should rightfully be able to charge for them. But it is a bite for the rest of us.
There is one way around it but since I am not in the business of cheating I won’t say here. But I will give a clue and that does involve screenshots.
Enough said.
I have also put together an in depth tutorial on How to Use Mail Merge and iWork to print many certificates on a Mac at once.
And if you prefer to create your own iWork templates – it is easy to do. Here is a step by step tutorial along with some additional sites and resources for finding free designs
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{ 9 comments… read them below or add one }
So what about those of us that have no access to Microsoft and don’t have the $$ to buy that whole stupid package? It doesn’t seem fair that I would be forced to buy a bloated program that I would hate using and can’t afford.
Pages opens Microsoft word files. Microsoft website doesn’t let you download unless you have windows, but if you can get hold of them somehow, a little tweeking should make them work.
Errors on opening will be formatting errors that can be corrected, then save as template.
Don’t buy the stupid packages. Pages rocks. Word is clumsy. Don’t beg for Pages to be clumsy.
You suggested website includes blank templates that CAN NOT be edited. If you want to edit them (duhhh. who doesn’t?) you have to pay $5 for each template.
Sorry, not a good option… unless you’re the one selling the templates.
I’m still looking for something free..
Mike ~
So right you are. I want to say that this charge is a change from before. I want to believe that when I originally wrote the post the free printable certificates were, in fact, FREE.
Thank you for the info and I did update my post to reflect the facts.
Hi, I have to produce a lot of certificates and I was wondering if its possible to paste a list of names somewhere and use a certificate as a template rather than typing each name in separately. I have the certificate as a word document and then copy each name in and print. I have to do hundreds of certificates and thought there must be a way of doing it. I have i works and Bento.
Can anyone help?
cheers
Hi Alan,
Surely there must be a way. I will think it through today and see if I can come up with something.
Alan,
This can be done using mail merge in iWork Pages. It is used in combo with data stored in Address Book or a Numbers spreadsheet. I put together this iWork tutorial to illustrate how it is done: Mail Merge Tutorial for iWork Mac
I paid the $5 and got a simple document with no border image whatever. What a rip off.
Stan,
That is too bad.
You might want to check out the Jumsoft set of iWork templates in the Mac App Store. You will probably get more bang for your buck with this package. There are only a handful of certificates in the bundle but there are tons of other documents – so you could probably customize something to fit your needs.
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