Print 5,000 Graduation Certificates From Your Registrar Export

The Registrar's Workflow for Bulk-Printing Graduation Certificates

Most institutions handle graduation diploma printing one of three ways:

1. Outsource to a vendor (Herff Jones, Jostens, regional certificate companies). Quality is high; cost is high ($3-8 per diploma plus per-student fees); lead time is 2-3 weeks; flexibility is low (vendor templates).
2. In-house print on pre-printed certificate stock. The school orders blank certificate paper from a vendor; the registrar's office personalizes each one in Word or a similar tool. Cheaper than outsourcing but error-prone at scale and time-intensive.
3. In-house print on plain cardstock. Lowest cost; requires a strong design to look authentic; bulk-personalization is the bottleneck.

EZdoc fits option 3 — high-quality design generated programmatically, printed on plain heavy cardstock at the institution's print shop or send to a local commercial printer. Below is the workflow most institutions adopt:

Step 1 — Export the Graduating Class From Your SIS

Standard CSV columns:

• recipient_name — full legal name (proper capitalization)
• degree — type of degree (BS, BA, MS, MBA, PhD, EdD, etc.)
• major — primary field of study
• concentration or specialization — optional subfield
• honors — Latin honors (Cum Laude, Magna, Summa) and society memberships
• graduation_date — date of conferral

Optional but useful:

• diploma_id — institutional identifier per diploma (for verification)
• _email_to — for digital-first delivery
• verification_url — for institutions doing online verification

Step 2 — Design the Master Template Once

Open the AI Builder. Describe your institution's standard diploma:

"University of [Name] graduation diploma. Conferral language: 'The Trustees of [University] confer upon'. Recipient name large in formal italic serif. Degree on second line, major on third. Latin honors in italic where applicable. Three signatures: Dean, President, Department Chair (use the actual names from your registrar's office). School colors: red and gold (or whatever your institution uses). Use the school seal at top-center."

The AI generates a print-ready PDF in 30 seconds. Iterate on the design via follow-up prompts ("make the border more conservative," "use Trajan Pro for the institution name," "add the motto"). When you like it, save as a template — that template becomes reusable for every future cohort.

Step 3 — Bulk-Generate the Cohort

From the saved template, upload your registrar CSV. EZdoc generates one PDF per row in roughly 1 second. A cohort of:

• 100 graduates: 90 seconds
• 500 graduates: 8 minutes
• 1,000 graduates: 16 minutes
• 5,000 graduates: 80 minutes

Output is a ZIP file with one PDF per graduate, named by recipient. Send to your print shop, or print in-house on heavy certificate cardstock.

Step 4 — Print and Distribute

• Stock: 100lb cotton certificate paper for the most authentic feel. 80lb works at lower cost.
• Local printer or in-house: Most local commercial printers will run certificate cardstock for $0.50-1.50 per diploma at the volumes institutions need. Often faster than waiting for an outsourced vendor.
• Digital-first delivery: Add _email_to to the CSV; EZdoc auto-emails each personalized diploma. Many institutions do this for online programs and grad-level cohorts.

Multi-Degree Cohorts in One Batch

Universities issuing multiple degree types (BS, BA, MS, MBA, PhD) in a single graduation often think they need separate templates per degree. They don't. One template + a degree-type column in the CSV handles all of them:

recipient_name,degree,major,honors,graduation_date
Marcus Chen,Bachelor of Science,Computer Science,Magna Cum Laude,May 22 2026
Eleanor Whitfield,Bachelor of Arts,English Literature,Phi Beta Kappa,May 22 2026
Robert Sanchez,Master of Business Administration,Finance,Beta Gamma Sigma,May 22 2026
Priya Subramanian,Master of Science,Data Science,,May 22 2026
Kenji Watanabe,Doctor of Philosophy,Economics,,May 22 2026

The same template adapts each row. For institutions with truly distinct diploma designs per degree level, two or three templates handle every degree — much fewer than per-major templates.

Pricing for an Institution

Most institutions land on the Scale plan ($99/month, 20,000 pages). For a 5,000-graduate institution running graduation once a year, that's effectively $0.10 per diploma in EZdoc costs — vs $3-8 per diploma from outsourced vendors. Larger institutions (10,000+ graduates) can either run two months of Scale ($198) or contact us about higher-volume pricing.

The Scale plan also covers any other institutional document generation — internship completion certificates from career services, awards from the dean's office, alumni-relations recognition certificates, training certificates from compliance offices. One plan, one workflow, every institutional document.

Want a Walk-Through?

If your registrar's office wants help setting up the workflow before your next graduation, fill out the contact form on this page. We're a small team and we can usually get on a call within a few days to answer specifics about your SIS, your design conventions, and your printing constraints.