Printing badges for a handful of people is easy. Printing them for three hundred, with the right names, correct ticket types, and QR codes that actually scan at the door, is where most organizers lose an evening. The trick is to stop thinking about individual badges and start thinking about one template plus a spreadsheet. Design the badge once, point it at your attendee list, and let bulk generation do the rest.
Here’s the full workflow, from ticketing export to a stack of cut, lanyard-ready badges.
Step 1: Export your attendee list to CSV
Every ticketing tool. Eventbrite, Tito, Hopin, RegFox, or your own registration form, can export a spreadsheet. Look for an “Export,” “Download attendees,” or “Reports” option and choose CSV (or export to Google Sheets and download as CSV).
Open the file and check that it’s clean before you do anything else:
- One row per attendee, with a header row at the top
- Names split sensibly (a single “Full Name” column is fine, or separate first/last)
- No merged cells, stray notes, or summary rows at the bottom
Step 2: Decide on your columns
The columns in your CSV become the fields you can place on the badge. For most conferences, include:
- Name: the largest element on the badge, readable from a few feet away
- Company / organization: optional but useful for networking events
- Title / role: e.g. “Head of Product,” shown smaller under the name
- Ticket / attendee type: Speaker, VIP, Attendee, Staff, Press, Sponsor
- QR code value: the unique string each attendee’s QR should encode (often their ticket ID or registration reference)
If your export is missing the attendee type or a clean QR value, add the column in your spreadsheet now. It’s far easier to fix here than after generating.
Step 3: Design the badge once
Open the editor and build a single template at the size you’ll actually print. CR80 (the standard plastic-card size) works for clip badges, but most conferences use a larger lanyard insert so the name reads across a room. Custom sizes are supported, so set it to match your lanyard pouches, a common choice is roughly A6 or A7.
Design tips that hold up at scale:
- Put the name front and center, with plenty of size and contrast
- Keep company and title secondary so the name dominates
- Leave a quiet zone around the QR code so scanners lock on quickly
- Account for the lanyard hole or slot at the top, keep important text out of that zone
- Mind the “fold line” if you’re using double-sided lanyard inserts
Our conference badge maker gives you a layout built for exactly this, and the name badge maker is a good starting point if your event is simpler and name-forward.
Step 4: Map your columns to the design
This is where bulk generation happens. Upload the CSV and map each spreadsheet column to a field on the badge:
- Upload your attendee export.
- Map Name → the name text field.
- Map Company and Title to their fields.
- Map Ticket type → the color-coded band (more on this below).
- Map your QR column → the QR element, so every badge gets a unique code.
You’ll see a live preview update as you map, so you can confirm row one looks right before generating all of them.
Add a scannable QR code per attendee
A per-attendee QR turns check-in from a name-search bottleneck into a one-second scan. Because the QR pulls its value from your CSV, every badge is unique automatically. Use it for:
- Door check-in: scan to mark someone arrived
- Session scanning: track attendance per talk or workshop
- Lead capture: let sponsors scan attendees who opt in
Color-code your ticket types
Color is the fastest way for staff and attendees to read the room. Map the ticket-type column to a colored header band or stripe so each role is obvious at a glance:
- Speakers in one bold color
- VIPs / sponsors in another
- Staff in a high-visibility color so they’re easy to find
- General attendees in your neutral brand color
Volunteers can then spot a speaker or a staff member from across the hall without reading a word.
Step 5: Bulk-generate and print
When the mapping looks right, generate. You get one badge per attendee packaged as a ZIP, plus a print-ready PDF with cut lines, multiple badges laid out per A4 sheet so you can print hundreds in one pass.
To print cleanly:
- Print on cardstock for durability, or perforated badge sheets if you have them
- Print at 100% / actual size, never “fit to page,” or your cut lines will drift
- Cut along the provided guides, then slot each insert into a lanyard pouch
Handling last-minute and on-site reprints
Walk-ups and typos are inevitable. Keep the project open on a laptop at the registration desk so you can fix a misspelled name, add a late VIP, or reprint a single badge on the spot. Re-export from your ticketing tool the morning of the event to catch overnight sign-ups, then generate just the new rows.
For multi-track or recurring events, the event badge maker keeps your template reusable, so next time you only swap the attendee list.
You can design a template and bulk-generate event badges for free, upload your list, map the columns, and download print-ready PDFs. Start making your badges and have your whole attendee list ready to print today.