Today we wrap up our LearnDash for Beginners series and we’re going to talk about certificates.
Check out our full LearnDash guide for beginners.
What are LearnDash certificates?
Simply put, they’re PDF documents automatically issued when a student completes a course or passes a quiz. The idea behind the certificate is to prove that the student has reached a specific goal within your course.
In a LearnDash certificate you can add: the student’s name, the course name, the completion date, the grade obtained, course hours, company name, signatures, and a QR code or verification code (which requires implementation) for certificate validation. Plus any other custom information you’d like.
The idea of the certificate is to credential a student according to your institution, so the student can share it on their resume. It can also be used by HR teams for internal training, open enrollment courses, and academic certificates.
To make sure a certificate can’t be forged, you can create a public verification page, a digital signature, a validation hash, etc. This increases credibility.
And it’s possible to create customized certificates with background images, CSS, shortcodes, and more.
Let’s go through the LearnDash Certificates menu options
When you go to LearnDash LMS > Certificates, you’ll find a menu with Certificates, Settings, and Shortcodes.
Under Certificates, click + Add New Certificate. The screen that opens is a simple editing screen, similar to a WordPress post.
Add a title for your certificate, something simple like: Certificate of Completion, Certificate of Achievement, Training Certificate, and the course name.
In the body, you add whatever information you need, such as: student name, course description with total hours, what was learned, completion date, certificate number, institution name, instructor or responsible party, certificate verification details, etc.
Scrolling further down, you can set the PDF size that will be generated: US standard Letter or A4, and the orientation: Landscape or Portrait.
To make your certificate more dynamic, you can use shortcodes, and here we’ve listed several for you to use.
LearnDash certificate shortcodes
[usermeta]
Displays information about the user who received the certificate.
| Shortcode | Description |
|---|---|
[usermeta field="first_name"] | Student’s first name. |
[usermeta field="last_name"] | Student’s last name. |
[usermeta field="display_name"] | User’s full display name. |
[usermeta field="user_login"] | Username (login). |
[usermeta field="nickname"] | Nickname. |
[usermeta field="user_email"] | Student’s email address. |
[usermeta field="user_url"] | Website listed on the user’s profile. |
[usermeta field="description"] | User’s profile bio/description. |
[usermeta field="id"] | User’s internal WordPress ID. |
[courseinfo]
Displays information about the course. Works only on certificates assigned to courses.
| Shortcode | Description |
|---|---|
[courseinfo show="course_title"] | Course name. |
[courseinfo show="course_price"] | Course price (for paid courses). |
[courseinfo show="course_price_type"] | Access type (Open, Free, Buy Now, Recurring, etc.). |
[courseinfo show="course_url"] | Course URL. |
[courseinfo show="course_points"] | Total points available in the course. |
[courseinfo show="user_course_points"] | Points earned by the student. |
[courseinfo show="enrolled_on"] | Date the student enrolled. |
[courseinfo show="completed_on"] | Course completion date. |
[courseinfo show="user_course_time"] | Total time spent on the course. |
[courseinfo show="cumulative_score"] | Average score across all course quizzes. |
[courseinfo show="cumulative_points"] | Average points earned. |
[courseinfo show="cumulative_total_points"] | Average of total possible points. |
[courseinfo show="cumulative_percentage"] | Average percentage score. |
[courseinfo show="cumulative_timespent"] | Average time spent on quizzes. |
[courseinfo show="aggregate_score"] | Final consolidated course score. |
[courseinfo show="aggregate_points"] | Total points earned. |
[courseinfo show="aggregate_total_points"] | Total possible points. |
[courseinfo show="aggregate_percentage"] | Final percentage across all quizzes. |
[courseinfo show="aggregate_timespent"] | Total time spent on all course quizzes. |
Customizing dates
You can define the date format:
Format examples:
| Format | Output |
|---|---|
F j, Y | June 30, 2026 |
d/m/Y | 30/06/2026 |
m-d-Y | 06-30-2026 |
[quizinfo]
Displays quiz information. Works only on quiz certificates.
| Shortcode | Description |
|---|---|
[quizinfo show="score"] | Score obtained. |
[quizinfo show="count"] | Number of questions in the quiz. |
[quizinfo show="pass"] | Minimum passing score. |
[quizinfo show="timestamp"] | Date and time the quiz was completed. |
[quizinfo show="points"] | Points earned on the quiz. |
[quizinfo show="total_points"] | Total possible points. |
[quizinfo show="percentage"] | Percentage score obtained. |
[quizinfo show="quiz_title"] | Quiz name. |
[quizinfo show="course_title"] | Name of the course the quiz belongs to. |
[quizinfo show="timespent"] | Time spent completing the quiz. |
You can also customize the date format:
[groupinfo]
Available for certificates issued upon completing a Group.
| Shortcode | Description |
|---|---|
[groupinfo show="group_title"] | Group name. |
[groupinfo show="group_url"] | Group URL. |
[groupinfo show="group_price_type"] | Group access type. |
[groupinfo show="group_price"] | Group price. |
[groupinfo show="group_users_count"] | Number of students in the group. |
[groupinfo show="group_courses_count"] | Number of courses in the group. |
[groupinfo show="user_group_status"] | Student’s status/progress in the group. |
[groupinfo show="enrolled_on"] | Date the student joined the group. |
[groupinfo show="completed_on"] | Date the student completed all courses in the group. |
[groupinfo show="percent_completed"] | Group completion percentage. |
Additional shortcode: Gradebook
In addition to the four main ones, LearnDash also offers a shortcode for those using the Gradebook feature:
It displays the student’s overall grade in a specific Gradebook. The Gradebook ID must be provided.
The most commonly used in practice
In most certificates, you’ll see a combination like this:
[usermeta field=”display_name”]
[courseinfo show=”course_title”]
[courseinfo show=”completed_on” format=”F j, Y”]
[courseinfo show=”aggregate_percentage”]
Settings
Going back to the Settings menu, we have a few options:
Certificate Custom Post Type Options: you can leave this as is. It has three options: featured image, custom fields, and revisions. Custom fields is the only one unchecked, but the one you’ll probably use most is revisions.
Certificate Custom Styles
Here you can add a global CSS style to all LearnDash certificates. Useful for changing the look of your certificates without having to edit them one by one.
This only works for legacy certificates (Legacy Certificates). It does not work for certificates created with the Certificate Builder.
What are “Legacy Certificates”?
These are the traditional LearnDash certificates, created before the Certificate Builder add-on. We’ll talk about this add-on further ahead.
And with that, we’ve completed our introduction to LearnDash.
Check out our full LearnDash guide for beginners, and if you’re looking for a LearnDash developer to build your course, please contact us!
