Conference Tracker Tip: Badge Format

12 June 2019

Conference Tracker can simplify your badge printing process.  The software allows you to design your badge with dynamically filled fields, text, and graphics.  When ready, just click a button and the software will generate badges for all your attendees.

This page has some tips about the correct formatting of your badges.


(1) What is the badge format

Conference Tracker generates badges in the common 3" by 4" name badge format.  If you'd like to use your own background image, it's recommended that you use 300 DPI and set it to 900x1200 resolution (3" x 4") when creating your image in an image editor. The software prints 6 badges per 8.5" by 11" sheet of paper.

Here is a sample badge:


(2) Which Printer?

You can use your standard office printer for printing the badges.  We recommend a color laser because this tends to generate crisp color badges.  If you prefer,you can use a black and white laser printer, or even an inkjet printer.


(3) Which Paper?

The badges are printed on a standard of 8.5" * 11" paper.  You have two choices for generating your badges:

1) Use any standard of 8.5" * 11" paper like heavy white paper and use a paper cutter to cut out the 6 badges you get on each sheet of paper, or:

2) Use a name badge paper which is perforated for each badge.  Separating the badges is easier and quicker on this type of paper.  We recommend the Avery # 5392 for this.  The pack contains 300 badges on 50 sheets.  You can get this from from Amazon for $12.79 with free shipping for Prime members.


(4) How to align the badges with the paper?

The Conference Tracker badges are in Adobe PDF format.  We recommend that you use the Adobe PDF viewer to open the badge file.  If you do not have this, download the free Adobe Acrobat Reader DC from Adobe.

IMPORTANT: The default Print Size setting in Adobe Acrobat Reader DC will produce incorrect badge formatting.  Change the setting to fix this issue.  Here is how:

1. From the Adobe Acrobat Reader DC menu, select File -> Print

2. In the Print dialogue box, Page Sizing and Handling section , by default the selected setting is "Shrink oversized pages".  This is the wrong setting for our purposes:

3. Change this option to "Actual size".  You should now be able to print badges with the correct alignment.