Badge template configuration

A visitor badge lets your staff see at a glance who is in the building and who they are visiting. Every visit type prints its own badge from its own template, so a contractor badge can look different from a visitor badge. This article covers switching badge printing on, designing the template and getting the label size right.

Turn on badge printing

  1. Go to the Vizito backoffice and select “Account settings” > “Visit types” in the left menu.

    The visit type overview

  2. Click “Edit” next to the visit type you want to print badges for, then open the “Badge” tab.

  3. Turn on “Print on sign in”, “Print from backoffice” or both.

    • Print on sign in prints a badge automatically as soon as a visitor finishes signing in on the tablet.
    • Print from backoffice lets you print and reprint badges yourself. You need this when you sign visitors in through Visitor sign in.

    The two badge printing switches on the Badge tab

  4. Set “Print orientation” to “Portrait” or “Landscape”, matching the way your labels come out of the printer.

  5. Click “Save”.

Edit the badge template

  1. On the “Badge” tab, click “Edit” next to “Badge template”.

    The Edit button next to Badge template

  2. Change the badge in the editor that opens. Vizito starts you off with a default template: type over the text, restyle it with the toolbar, and use placeholders for anything that differs per visitor.

    The badge template editor

  3. Replace the Vizito logo with your own: select the logo, delete it, then choose “Insert” > “Insert embedded image” and pick your image file.

    The Insert embedded image menu item

  4. Set “Label width” and “Label height” under the editor to the size of the label you print on. Both are in pixels and the smallest accepted value is 20 px.

  5. Click “Close” to leave the editor, then click “Save” on the “Badge” tab.

Note: a badge that prints cut off, stretched or half-empty is usually a size problem rather than a design problem. Check “Label width” and “Label height” against your actual label, and check “Print orientation” on the “Badge” tab, before you start changing the template itself. See Compatible labels for the label stock we test with.

Reuse one design for another visit type

Each visit type keeps its own template, so a design you are happy with can be carried over instead of rebuilt. The buttons sit on the bottom row of the editor toolbar.

  1. Open the badge template of the visit type whose design you want, click “Copy HTML (with images)”, then click “Close”.
  2. Open the badge template of the other visit type, click “Paste HTML (with images)”, then click “Close”.
  3. Click “Save” on the “Badge” tab of that visit type.

Add placeholders

A placeholder is replaced with the visitor’s own details at the moment the badge prints, so %first_name% on the template becomes the name of whoever is signing in.

  1. Click in the template where you want the value to appear.

  2. Click “Placeholders” on the formatting toolbar, to the right of the <> source code icon.

    The Placeholders button on the editor toolbar

  3. Click the placeholder you need. It is inserted where your cursor was. Click “Close” when you have added everything.

    The placeholder picker

The picker offers these placeholders:

Placeholder Inserts
First name %first_name%
Last name %last_name%
Photo <img src="%photo%" style="height: 200px;">
Company %company%
Here to see? %recipient%
Email %email%
Signed in (Day) %signed_in_day%
Signed in (Month) %signed_in_month%
Signed in (Year) %signed_in_year%
Signed in (Hour) %signed_in_hour%
Signed in (Minute) %signed_in_minute%
Signed in (Second) %signed_in_second%

“Photo” inserts the visitor photo as an image 200 pixels high. Change the height value to print it larger or smaller. The photo is only available if the visit type takes one, which you switch on under the “Photo” tab.

You can also type a placeholder yourself instead of picking it, which is how you reach your own custom sign-in fields: write the field name between two % signs and remove any spaces. Anything you type by hand is worth printing once on a real badge to confirm it comes out the way you expect.

Text between curly brackets { } disappears from the badge when the placeholder inside it is empty, so a visitor who leaves out their company does not get a stray label printed.

QR codes

QR codes are not in the picker; you type them. Use %qrcode-value% and replace “value” with what the code should contain:

  • %qrcode-vizito.eu% prints a QR code for a fixed value, here a link to a website.
  • %qrcode-recipient% prints a QR code containing the host being visited.
  • %qrcode-known_visitor_id% prints a QR code for the registered visitor, which they can scan to sign out again. To get this on every visitor’s badge, turn on “Automatically create registered visitors” under “Advanced settings” on the “General” tab of the visit type.

Edit the source code

For a design the editor cannot produce, edit the badge as HTML.

  1. Click the <> icon on the formatting toolbar.

    The source code icon on the editor toolbar

  2. Edit the HTML in the “Source code” window and click “Ok”.

    The source code window

  3. Click “Close” to leave the editor, then click “Save” on the “Badge” tab.

Note: nothing is stored until you save. Leaving the source code window needs “Ok”, leaving the editor needs “Close”, and the visit type only keeps the new badge once you click “Save” on the “Badge” tab.