The 10 Free Pre-Designed Completion Certificate Templates and How to Create Them

Summary: In this article, you’ll get 10 free, pre-designed completion certificate templates that you can use right away, plus also learn how to create your own, customizable template in seconds.

Remember the pride and excitement you felt when you were rewarded for an outstanding achievement or hard work? A gold star in elementary school, your high school diploma, a college degree, or an athletic trophy… In those moments, everyone feels a surge of energy and a hundredfold motivation to do even more. This is a feeling that we never really outgrow!

If you offer professional development courses or learning programs, run online courses, teach students, and still don’t celebrate their achievements, read on to discover the easiest way to recognize their efforts — with a completion certificate.

What Is a Certificate of Completion? 

A certificate of completion is an official document awarded to learners who have successfully completed training (whether it’s a short course or an extensive L&D program). The requirements for certification can vary: often learners or students need to achieve a certain score, but sometimes simply completing the training is sufficient.

Such a document typically consists of the name of the company issuing the certificate of completion, the learner’s name, the course title, and the completion date. It might also include the overall score, expiration date, and some security elements, such as a completion certificate ID, watermark, embossed seal, or holographic image.

An example of a printable certificate of completion issued by iSpring

Why Certificates of Completion Matter

While not all course providers issue completion certificates, in fact they mean more than just a formal conclusion of a training program. Here are the key benefits that certificates bring to both learners and trainers:

For companies and trainers	For learners
More brand credibility and recognition	Enhanced engagement
Higher course completion rates	Tangible proof of acquired skills
Competitive advantage	Career advancement

By issuing certificates, you can gain a solid reputation as a provider of quality training. A printable certificate of completion adds value to any online course. It can demonstrate that you hold certain standards in your programs, which increases trust in your brand and can also provide a competitive advantage, making your training stand out from competitors who don’t offer such credentials. 

Rewarding a learner’s hard work and achievement will also drive their motivation, encourage them to take training more seriously, and, thus, help you achieve high completion rates.

An official certificate of completion demonstrates that learners invested time and effort in a training program and always serves as a tangible proof of acquired knowledge and skills, giving a real boost to someone’s resume and helping them land a good job in the future.

10 Free Certificate of Completion Templates

If you aren’t impressed with the default design options for certificates of completion that are available in MS Word and still don’t have time to search for an online certificate maker and create eye-catching completion certificate templates yourself, our designers have created 10 free certificate templates in different styles that you can save and use right away! Check them out:

1. Classic and traditional

Download the template for free →

This is a universal course completion certificate template with a solid, traditional feel that makes it perfect for both academic and corporate training courses.

All you need to do is download the completion template, fill in the required fields, and change the certificate design a bit if needed. Or, if you want to upload it to the LMS, leave the variables exactly as they are for automatic substitution.

Download the template for free →

2. Modern and creative

This eye-catching certificate completion template looks great for design-oriented disciplines, digital art courses, marketing training programs, or any subject that encourages creativity and modernity.

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After downloading, you’ll be able to change the color scheme and fonts if needed.

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3. Academic

This completion template features a classic design with a muted color scheme that gives it an academic vibe.

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It’s a great choice for universities, colleges, and educational institutions that award a certificate for academic achievement.

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4. Minimalistic

This completion certificate template has a minimalistic, refined style, which makes it pretty universal.

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Download the template for free →

5. Business

This completion template is perfect for formal corporate training, such as for completing some professional development courses, finishing a difficult project, or certifications. It has a rather serious look that’s just right for a business environment.

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Once you save the free certificate, you can easily insert your signature, add more text blocks, or remove unnecessary ones.

Download the template for free →

How to Create a Certificate of Completion in MS Word

If you want to create your own course completion certificate template, there are many tools that can help you with that, including Canva, Certifier, Visme, or any other online certificate maker that helps create customizable certificates. However, you can create one in a matter of minutes with no special software, by using the familiar MS Word. We’ll show you how:

Step 1. Open MS Word and choose a template

First, open MS Word, select File in the top ribbon, and click on New. In the opened window, you’ll see plenty of templates that MS Word offers, from cover letters and student reports to party invitations, banner calendars, and gift certificates.

In the search bar, enter “certificate” and select the most appropriate template:

Step 2. Customize the certificate of completion

Once you open a default template, you can customize it: change text, remove unnecessary parts, or add something new (your own photos, a signature, or a logo, for example).

To customize text, simply click on the field you want to change and start typing. If you need to add a new form field, go to Insert → Text → Text Box, and click Draw Text Box:

Note: If you use a learning management system (LMS) or other program to issue completion certificates automatically, it’s important to create a completion template in which the specific details about the learner and the training would substitute automatically, without you having to do so manually.

For this to happen, you need to enter variables in a particular format. For example, iSpring Learn LMS recognizes the following variables:

• %NAME% — the first and last name of the learner who completed specific course
• %COURSE NAME% — the title of the course or training
• %DURATION% — the amount of time the learner spent to complete your course
• %AWARDED_SCORE% — awarded score points

Learn about even more variables to personalize your certificate in iSpring Learn →

Add all the necessary information you want to include in your completion certificate by adding new text boxes. Here’s what we have:

If you’ve done everything right, this is what your printable certificate of completion might look like:

Step 3. Save your completion certificate template

If you’re satisfied with the result, save your completion template in .docx or .pdf format on your computer. Select File → Save As → This PC, choose an appropriate folder, and click Save.

Step 4. Upload your certificate of completion to an LMS

Once you’ve created your course completion certificate template, you can upload it to your LMS. In iSpring Learn, you can upload .pdf and .docx certificates, which will be delivered to your learners for the successful completion of courses and training programs. So, if you use this LMS, follow these steps:

1.  Go to the Settings section and open the Additional Options tab. 

2. Then click Certificates → Add Certificate.

3. Click on the Browse… button and select a file. Then, create a name for the completion certificate and click on Upload File. The certificate of completion will now be added to your iSpring Learn account.

Perfect! Now you have your own custom course completion certificate that you can issue to your learners automatically.

You can also create completion certificate templates using MS PowerPoint. The overall process is pretty much the same.

To Sum Up

That’s it! We hope you find a certificate of completion design that is perfect for your needs, and that our clear-cut instructions will help you create beautiful certificates on your own. Download our free package of certificate templates at once and share your thoughts in the comment section!