ConferCraft

Open-source tools for academic congress workflows.

ConferCraft is an open-source project focused on creating practical, browser-based tools for academic conferences, congresses, symposia, and similar scientific events.

The project currently includes a central ConferCraft Home interface and two document-generation applications:

• Acceptance Letter Generator — create personalized congress acceptance letters in bulk.
• Certificate Generator — create personalized one-page certificates in bulk.

All applications run directly in the browser. Users do not need to install R, RStudio, or any additional software to use the live versions.

Live Applications

ConferCraft Home

Open ConferCraft

The ConferCraft Home application is the main entry point for the project. It provides a clean interface for accessing the available tools and keeps the applications connected as part of a single workflow.

Acceptance Letter Generator

Launch the Acceptance Letter Generator

Create, preview, customize, and export personalized academic acceptance letters from an Excel participant list.

Certificate Generator

Launch the Certificate Generator

Create, preview, customize, and export personalized landscape certificates from an Excel participant list.

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Acceptance Letter Generator

What It Does

Acceptance Letter Generator helps congress organizers create personalized acceptance letters in bulk.

Upload an Excel file containing participant information, customize the letter design and content, preview participant-specific PDFs, and export all generated letters as a ZIP file.

Main Features

• Excel-based batch letter generation
• Personalized participant names and paper titles
• Eight customizable PDF templates
• Single-color template customization
• Open-source font collection
• Support for Turkish characters
• Separate fonts for title/branding and body/signature text
• Markdown-style bold and italic formatting
• LaTeX-style mathematical expressions
• Optional congress or organization branding
• Optional congress logo
• One, two, or three signature blocks
• Optional signature images
• Optional Excel-based footer text
• Participant-specific PDF preview
• Preview update workflow
• Batch PDF export as ZIP
• Light and dark interface modes
• A4 portrait PDF output
• Direct navigation to Certificate Generator
• Clickable ConferCraft brand link back to the main application

Acceptance Letter Templates

The Acceptance Letter Generator currently includes eight templates:

Linear Horizon	Contour Flow	Diamond Edge	Watercolor Bloom
Canvas Wash	Silken Waves	Prism Dots	Origami Fold

Each template can be recolored using a single Template Color setting while preserving the template's light and dark visual hierarchy.

Acceptance Letter Excel File Format

The uploaded Excel file should contain participant information in the first columns.

Column	Content	Required
1	Full Name	Yes
2	Paper Title	Yes
3	Footer Text (Optional)	No

Example:

Full Name	Paper Title	Footer
Cameron Tucker	Machine Learning-Based Prediction of Academic Performance Using Multidimensional Learning Indicators	MF2009
Michael Scott	Explainable Artificial Intelligence for Automated Assessment of Psychological Constructs	TO2005
Ron Swanson	Evaluating Measurement Invariance in AI-Assisted Psychometric Assessment Systems	PR2009

The third column is optional. If it contains text, that text is displayed as a small gray footer in the generated PDF.

Acceptance Letter Personalization

The letter content supports placeholders:

{name}

Participant's full name from the first Excel column.

{paper}

Paper title from the second Excel column.

Example:

Dear {name},

We are pleased to inform you that your paper entitled "{paper}"
has been accepted for presentation at our congress.

Rich Text and Mathematical Expressions

Acceptance Letter Generator supports lightweight Markdown-style formatting:

**bold**
*italic*
***bold italic***

Inline and block-style mathematical expressions can also be used with LaTeX-style syntax.

$E = mc^2$

$$
x = \frac{-b \pm \sqrt{b^2 - 4ac}}{2a}
$$

Acceptance Letter Branding

Congress branding is optional.

Users can add:

• Congress or organization name
• Congress logo
• Signature text
• Signature images

The application supports up to three signature blocks.

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Certificate Generator

What It Does

Certificate Generator helps congress organizers create personalized certificates in bulk from an Excel participant list.

Each participant receives a single-page landscape PDF certificate. Users can customize the certificate title, body, template, color, fonts, logos, signatures, and participant name size before exporting all certificates as a ZIP file.

Main Features

• Excel-based batch certificate generation
• Required Full Name column and optional Title column
• {name} and {title} placeholders
• Independently adjustable {name} font size
• Eight customizable SVG certificate templates
• Single-color template customization
• Separate title and body/signature font controls
• Markdown-style bold and italic formatting
• Up to two logos
• Independent logo placement
• Six logo positions: Top Left, Top Center, Top Right, Bottom Left, Bottom Center, Bottom Right
• Up to two signatures
• Independent signature placement
• Three signature positions: Bottom Left, Bottom Center, Bottom Right
• Position conflict validation for logos and signatures
• Participant-specific PDF preview
• Preview update workflow
• Batch PDF export as ZIP
• Light and dark interface modes
• One-page landscape PDF output
• Direct navigation to Acceptance Letter Generator
• Clickable ConferCraft brand link back to the main application

Certificate Templates

The Certificate Generator currently includes eight templates:

Whisper Current	Classic Flourish	Baroque Scroll	Deco Grid
Hellenic Key	Laureate Crest	Fine Line	Botanical Filigree

Each certificate template can be recolored using a single Template Color setting while preserving the source artwork's visual hierarchy.

Certificate Excel File Format

The uploaded Excel file should contain participant information in the first two columns.

Column	Content	Required
1	Full Name	Yes
2	Title	No

Example:

Full Name	Title
Mitchell Pritchett	Machine Learning in Education
Dwight Schrute	Introduction to R Programming Language
Ben Wyatt	Item Response Theory

The second column is optional. It is only required when the certificate content uses the {title} placeholder.

Certificate Personalization

Certificate title and body text support:

{name}

Participant's full name from the first Excel column.

{title}

Participant's optional title or role from the second Excel column.

Example:

This certificate is proudly presented to

{name}

for their contribution as **{title}** to the scientific program of the event.

The font size of {name} can be adjusted independently from the surrounding certificate text.

Logos and Signatures

Certificate Generator supports up to two logos and two signature blocks.

Logo positions:

• Top Left
• Top Center
• Top Right
• Bottom Left
• Bottom Center
• Bottom Right

Signature positions:

• Bottom Left
• Bottom Center
• Bottom Right

Two logos cannot occupy the same slot. Two signatures cannot occupy the same slot, and a bottom-positioned logo cannot share the same slot as a signature.

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ConferCraft Home

The ConferCraft Home application acts as the central entry point for the project.

It provides:

• A unified landing page for the ConferCraft tool family
• Direct access to Acceptance Letter Generator
• Direct access to Certificate Generator
• Shared visual language with the document-generation applications
• Light and dark interface modes
• Responsive desktop and mobile layout
• Direct GitHub access

The two generators also contain navigation controls for moving between applications, while the ConferCraft brand link returns users to the main landing page.

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Fonts and Interface

ConferCraft uses a consistent visual system across its applications.

The interface uses:

• IBM Plex Sans for controls, helper text, menus, and general interface content
• DM Serif Display for editorial-style headings and branding
• A teal-centered color palette
• Light and dark appearance modes
• Rounded cards, subtle gradients, and restrained interface decoration

The PDF generators use an open-source font workflow designed to work reliably in local and cloud deployments.

The font menus include families suitable for Turkish characters such as:

ç, ğ, ı, İ, ö, ş, ü

Where supported, title and body/signature fonts can be selected independently.

Project Structure

ConferCraft is organized as a multi-application repository.

ConferCraft/
├── README.md
├── LICENSE
├── .gitignore
└── apps/
    ├── confercraft/
    │   ├── app.R
    │   └── manifest.json
    │
    ├── acceptance-letter-generator/
    │   ├── app.R
    │   ├── manifest.json
    │   └── templates/
    │       ├── linear_horizon.svg
    │       ├── contour_flow.svg
    │       ├── diamond_edge.svg
    │       ├── watercolor_bloom.svg
    │       ├── canvas_wash.svg
    │       ├── silken_waves.svg
    │       ├── prism_dots.svg
    │       └── origami_fold.svg
    │
    └── certificate-generator/
        ├── app.R
        ├── manifest.json
        └── templates/
            ├── whisper_current.svg
            ├── classic_flourish.svg
            ├── baroque_scroll.svg
            ├── deco_grid.svg
            ├── hellenic_key.svg
            ├── laureate_crest.svg
            ├── fine_line.svg
            └── botanical_filigree.svg

Future ConferCraft tools can be added as separate folders under apps/ while keeping the same shared product structure.

Running Locally

Requirements

Install R and the packages required by the application you want to run.

ConferCraft Home

shiny

Acceptance Letter Generator

Core packages include:

shiny
readxl
zip
grid
png
jpeg
sysfonts
showtext

The application can also use packages such as rsvg, magick, and latex2exp for SVG rendering and mathematical expressions.

Certificate Generator

Core packages include:

shiny
readxl
zip
grid
png
jpeg
sysfonts
showtext
rsvg

Start an Application

Open the relevant application directory in R/RStudio and run:

shiny::runApp()

For example:

shiny::runApp("apps/confercraft")
shiny::runApp("apps/acceptance-letter-generator")
shiny::runApp("apps/certificate-generator")

You can also open the corresponding app.R file in RStudio and click Run App.

Deployment

The live ConferCraft applications are deployed using Posit Connect Cloud.

The source code is maintained on GitHub, while Connect Cloud runs each Shiny application as a separate deployed content item.

Deployment manifests are stored in:

apps/confercraft/manifest.json
apps/acceptance-letter-generator/manifest.json
apps/certificate-generator/manifest.json

The applications can use environment variables for cross-application navigation:

CONFERCRAFT_HOME_URL
CONFERCRAFT_ACCEPTANCE_URL
CONFERCRAFT_CERTIFICATE_URL

Open Source

ConferCraft is an open-source project.

You are welcome to inspect the source code, learn from it, adapt it, and contribute improvements in accordance with the repository license.

Roadmap

Current ConferCraft applications:

• ✅ ConferCraft Home
• ✅ Acceptance Letter Generator
• ✅ Certificate Generator

Future versions may add additional tools for academic event and congress workflows.

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License.

See the LICENSE file for details.

Author

Metehan Güngör

GitHub: @gungorMetehan

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ConferCraft

Build professional congress documents with less repetitive work.