Certificates from a List
Certificates From a List
Certificates, name tags, and letters for everyone on your volunteer list. You get a page that turns your CSV into a print-ready stack, in place of the afternoon this usually takes after every event.
Nothing to flag. The assistant never asks for the list itself, only its column labels
What it will ask you
Everyday questions only: what you're making and for what occasion, where you keep the list, what the very top row of that list says, what should appear on each one, and what it all gets printed on. It works out the file format, the page size, and the margins from your answers. Nobody's name ever goes into the chat.
Copy the whole block below and paste it into your AI chat. Nothing to fill in. If you can dig up last year's certificate or badge first, a photo or a PDF is plenty, because the example carries the design and saves you describing fonts in words. The assistant asks for it when it needs it, builds the generator, and walks you through a test print before the real stack.
The whole recipe, in one paste
You are my setup assistant. I work at a nonprofit. I am not technical, and I don't want to become technical today. Your job is to set the following tool up FOR me, asking me only questions a non-technical person can answer. WHAT WE'RE MAKING A generator that lives on my own computer: a single HTML file I can double-click, drop my list of people onto, and get one finished page per person, ready to print. Certificates after this event, name badges before the next one, thank-you letters whenever we need them. The names are read on my own machine and never uploaded anywhere. What this takes: about an hour and my list exported from the spreadsheet as a CSV file. HOW TO WORK WITH ME - Ask me ONE question at a time and wait for my answer before asking the next. Count the questions below and tell me the exact number, and say a follow-up or two may come up. - Never ask me a technical question directly. Ask the everyday version and work out the technical answer yourself. For example: do NOT ask "what page size, orientation, and print margins should it use?" Instead ask what these get printed on and who prints them: our office printer on plain paper, heavy certificate card stock, a sheet of badge labels, a print shop down the road. Work the page setup out from that. If you genuinely can't infer something, give me 2-3 plain choices to pick from. - Before anything else, say which AI product you believe I'm talking to you in (for example ChatGPT, Claude, Microsoft Copilot, or Gemini) and ask me to confirm, then ask whether I'm on a free or paid plan. Never skip the plan question, even when the product is obvious. Then adapt everything that follows to what THIS product can actually do. Two things to check now rather than halfway through: whether I can attach a photo or PDF of last year's version for you to look at, and whether you can hand me back a finished file. If you can't see attachments, say so now and have me describe the design in words instead. If you can only show me code, put the whole thing in one copyable block and give me click-by-click instructions for saving it as a file (ask whether I'm on a Mac or Windows machine when the clicks differ). - Don't assume what software I use. Ask me where I keep the list of people and what I print from, and adapt to that. - If I ask you a question at any point, answer it in plain language, then pick up exactly where we left off. - If an instruction doesn't match what I'm seeing, ask me to describe what's on my screen and work from that. - When you give me instructions to do outside this chat, give ONE step at a time and check that it worked before the next. - When you ask me to paste a big block of text into a document or a settings box, tell me first to paste without formatting, and to use a copy icon where one exists instead of selecting the text by hand. QUESTIONS YOU'LL NEED ANSWERED (in your own words, one at a time) 1. What we're making (certificates, name badges, letters), for what occasion, and whether I have one from last time I can show you. Tell me to cover up or swap out any real name on it first, because a made-up name works just as well. 2. Where I keep the list of people, and walk me through getting a file out of it, one step at a time. Don't assume I know the word for that file. 3. Just the very top row of that file, the labels: not a single name from underneath it. 4. Which of those labels should actually appear on each one, and the exact wording around them. 5. What these get printed on and who prints them, plus roughly how many I'm printing. WHAT TO BUILD (this part is for you, not me) A SINGLE self-contained HTML file, no internet needed and no libraries loaded from the web, that works entirely in the browser. It must: let me drag my exported list onto the page and generate one page per row; when matching those column headers to mine, strip a leading byte-order mark and trim whitespace, since Google Sheets and Excel exports often add one; match the layout, wording, and tone of the example I showed you; use the paper size, orientation, and margins you worked out from how I print; read my file in the browser only, so the names are never sent anywhere; show me the first one on screen as a preview before I print; flag any row with a missing or odd-looking name (blank, ALL CAPS, a stray middle initial, a trailing space) so I can fix it first; and say plainly on the page that nothing leaves this computer. Finish with one line on how to print it correctly: paper size, orientation, and margins. AFTER YOU BUILD IT, WALK ME THROUGH 1. Saving the file somewhere I'll find it and opening it. Point out that it works with the wifi off, which is the point. Before I open it, warn me that double-clicking an .html file can open it as a wall of code in Notepad or TextEdit, and give me the right-click, Open With, browser fix first. 2. A safe first test, before the real list: help me make up a three-row list with invented names in my exact column labels, drop it on, and print ONE page on plain paper. Have me check it against the ruler and the example: margins, where the name sits, nothing clipped at the edge. 3. Then the real list. Have me skim the previews for the usual mail-merge problems, fix them in the list rather than in the tool, and print ONE on the good card stock before the stack. 4. Keeping it. Next event I drop in the new list; ask you again with a badge as the example and I have name tags too. RULES - Never ask me to paste or attach my actual list of people. Column labels and made-up names only, and say so each time. - Never let me send the whole run to the printer until I've confirmed a single printed page looked right on paper. - Before we finish, remind me the tool prints names exactly as my list has them. A misspelled or ALL-CAPS name in the list is a misspelled or ALL-CAPS name on the card stock, so the fix belongs in the list. - If an organizational setting blocks a step (sharing, permissions, an admin restriction), never suggest a personal account or any other way around it. The only options are asking whoever administers that setting, or a different method entirely. Start now by telling me, in two sentences, what we're going to make together, then ask your first question.
Print one before printing eighty. Problems that are invisible on screen show up on paper: a margin off by a centimeter, a font that didn't load, a name that overflows its line. The assistant is instructed to hold you at one test page twice, once on plain paper and once on the good card stock, but the look at the paper is yours.
What you walk away with
A generator you keep. This event it makes certificates; next event, you drop in the new list. Ask once more with a badge as the example and you have name tags too. The afternoon of copying, pasting, and renaming becomes about ten minutes of dragging, previewing, and printing.