Signage Templates

A Signage Template describes the layout of a sign: where the Hole number, map, notes, QR code and logos sit, and how big each part is. A template holds no course data. When you apply a template to a sign, Parkdly fills it with that sign's real data: Hole numbers, pars, distances, Layouts and notes. Your course Theme provides the colors and fonts. A template can pin single blocks to a font of their own (see Fonts). One template can drive every sign on a course. A Theme change restyles all of them without touching the layout.

Parkdly includes built-in templates. Custom templates let you design your own, starting from a built-in template or from a blank canvas. You design them in the template studio. Open it with Library → Templates in the studio's top bar.

Create a template

Click New template. A short wizard opens with three steps.

1. Type: enter the template's name. Choose Tee Sign (one sign per Hole) or Info Board (one sign for the whole course).
2. Shape: choose Vertical or Horizontal under Orientation. Then choose the aspect ratio. The list shows the print sizes that each ratio covers. A-series covers A4, A3 and A5. Letter is 8.5×11 in. Choose the shape you print at. The rest of the editor then uses that shape's units. You can change the shape later in the editor's shape settings.
3. Start: choose a blank canvas, or choose a built-in template as your starting point.

A built-in template is usually the faster start. Everything is laid out, and you change only what you need, for example "the Parkdly look, but with our logo bigger". A blank canvas gives you an empty sign. You add blocks to it, including the map.

You can also copy a built-in template directly. Every built-in template card has a Copy button. It adds an editable copy to My templates and skips the wizard.

The copy is yours. When you edit it, the built-in template does not change.

The editor

When you open a template, the editor shows the block palette and the layers list on the left. Your design is in the middle. The settings of the selected item are on the right.

Draft and Publish

One template can be on signs across many courses. For this reason, your edits do not reach those signs at once.

• Edits save as a draft. Changes save automatically while you work. Nothing is lost if you close the tab. The header shows Draft and the state Saving… / Saved / Not saved. Courses keep showing the published version.
• Publish makes the draft the version that every course shows. The header shows how many courses use the template. If any course uses it, Publish asks you to confirm. After you publish, the header shows Published again.
• Discard draft, in the ⋮ menu, deletes your unpublished changes. The editor reopens the published version.

Your library shows the published design of each template. A template with unpublished changes also has a Draft badge. Duplicating a template always copies the published version, never the draft. Renaming a template takes effect at once. The name is not part of the draft.

Blocks

Everything on a sign is a block: the Hole number, the map area, notes, the QR code, sponsor logos and so on. To add a block, drag it from the palette onto the sign. Drop it inside a Box to place it in that Box. You can also click a palette tile to arm it, then click the canvas to place it. Esc cancels.

Each block has a fixed job. The Hole Number block always shows the Hole's number. The Notes block always shows the sign's notes. You choose where things go and how they look. The data fills in by itself.

Right-click a block, on the canvas or in the layers list, for its quick actions.

A block with many settings shows the everyday ones first. The rest are behind an Advanced toggle in its settings panel. The Hole Summary block, for example, shows its three table colors first. The border color, corner style and sizing limits are under Advanced.

Colors

A block's colors come from your Theme, not from a free color picker. A template then stays consistent with whatever Theme the course uses. Pick the text and foreground colors from the Theme's tokens. The editor shows live contrast guidance against what the block sits on. You can see at a glance if the text will be readable when printed.

Fill colors, such as a Box's surface or a badge's card, also offer a Transparent swatch (the slashed circle). A transparent fill paints nothing, so what is behind it shows through. The other parts of the block still draw. A Box with a transparent surface and a border becomes an outlined frame over the panel behind it. Text and icon colors never offer Transparent, because invisible text is never what you want.

Every control that you see for a selected block does something visible. If a color choice currently paints nothing, for example because a Layout's own color is in use, the picker dims and explains why.

Fonts

Text renders in your Theme's font by default. Every block that shows text has a Font control in its Text settings. Leave it on Theme font (default) to follow the Theme. Or pick a font to pin that block to it, whatever Theme the course uses. The list previews each choice in its own typeface. It offers only fonts that render the same on screen and in the exported PDF.

You choose templates per sign. A font override in a template is therefore also the way to give one sign different typography. Put the override in a template, then apply that template to that sign only. You can override text sizes and colors on a single sign directly in the Signage Editor. You do not need a template for that.

The Box

The Box is the container block. When you put blocks inside a Box, they stack together. The Box provides the panel behind them: background fill, border, rounded corners and padding.

Rounded corners, under Options, turns each of the Box's four corners on or off. Two stacked panels can then meet flush. The top panel is rounded only on top. The bottom panel is rounded only on the bottom. The seam between them is square. The Map Area block has the same Rounded corners control, so the map can sit flush against a neighboring panel.

You can wrap any block in a Box with one click. Choose Wrap in Box in its right-click menu. This is how you put a colored card behind a Hole number or a notes panel. You can also drag a block from the palette into an existing Box.

Two settings make the Box a layout tool:

• Direction, under Arrange contents: Stack places blocks top to bottom. Row places them side by side.
• Content, under Size: Fill area keeps the Box at the size you drew. Fit content shrinks its height to what is inside. A Stack fits the sum of its blocks. A Row fits its tallest block. Pin to sets the edge that the fitted content sticks to.

When a Box is on Fit content, each block inside sizes to its own content. There is no spare space to divide, so the editor hides the per-block size options. If you need a block at an exact size, leave the Box on Fill area. There, Fill the leftover space, Fit to content and Fixed size all take effect.

Color behind the map

When the map sits in its own area, the Map Area is an ordinary layer in the layers list. The list runs back to front, so the rows above the Map row sit behind the map. The editor tags them behind map.

A block behind the map is cut around the map's window, so the course map shows through. A Box behind the map is a background:

• It runs to the edge of the sign on every side where it reaches the edge of the grid. Its content stays where you placed it.
• When you export with Leave room for mounting, it continues under the screws or frame on those sides.

This is how the Parkdly Rise templates draw their colored band: a Box behind the map, spanning the top of the sign.

To put a Box behind the map, drag its row above the Map row, or select it and use Send backward in its Layer card. Blocks below the Map row paint over the map, as before.

When the map fills the whole sign (Placement: Fill), it is the sign's background. It stays first in the list and nothing can go behind it.

Background images

A Box and the sign's background can each show a picture behind their content. To set one:

1. Select a Box and open its Background card. For the sign itself, open the Background section of the template settings.
2. Set Image or pattern to Image.
3. Pick one of the template's images, or click Upload.

An upload can be PNG, JPEG, WebP or SVG. It can be up to 2 MB. A template can hold five images.

• Fit: Cover fills the whole area and trims what does not fit. Contain shows the whole picture, centered, with the background color around it.
• Opacity fades the picture into the color behind it.

A background image belongs to the template. It is the same on every sign that uses the template. It follows the rounded corners and shape of its surface. A Box with a transparent fill still shows its image. The sign background needs a Color before its image shows. An area has one background treatment at a time. When you pick Image, it replaces stripes.

A template copied from a Parkdly Rise template before October 2026 has a top band. It keeps printing exactly as before. To remove it, open the Background section of the template settings and clear Show a top band. To change its color or height, remove it and add a Box behind the map instead.

Panels that disappear when empty

Not every Hole has notes. Not every course has sponsors. Hide when empty, under Options, is on by default. It removes a Box from the printed sign when everything inside it is empty. A Hole without notes then gets clean space instead of an empty panel.

A Box disappears only when all of its content is empty. For this reason, a panel with an icon next to its notes never disappears, because the icon is always there. Under the toggle, What counts as content here lists the blocks in the Box. Untick the icon and it becomes decoration. It still shows whenever the panel shows, but it no longer keeps the panel on the sign. The whole panel, icon included, then disappears on a Hole without notes.

Keep these two points in mind:

• Untick the blocks that sit directly inside the Box you want to hide. If an icon sits in its own small Box, untick that Box, not the icon inside it.
• If nothing is ticked, the panel has no content and never appears. The editor warns you when this happens.

While you edit, a panel that would disappear shows as a dashed outline that reads Nothing to show. You can still see and select it. To check how the design looks on a Hole without notes, switch off Notes in the Test data panel.

How many sections sit side by side

The Course Info block on an info board and the Notes block on a tee sign are the content area. They hold the sign's sections. Sections are the blocks of text and pictures that you write per sign in the Signage Editor.

Both blocks have a Sections side by side option, under Options. On a tee sign it starts at 1. On an info board it starts at Auto. With Auto, as many sections fit side by side as the area has room for, up to three. The rest wrap onto the next row. A section needs about 36 mm at the template's design size. That is about a sixth of the short side of an A4 sheet. A board turned on its side then gets the same columns as the same room upright.

You can pick 1, 2 or 3 to set the count yourself. Use this for a wide board that needs one more column of shorter notes. Use it also for a design that reads better as one column at any width.

Sections fill in the order you wrote them. A section added at the end never moves the sections above it. A section set to span the full width takes a row of its own.

The template decides this once, and every sign that uses it follows. You never set it per sign. The built-in templates show one section per row on tee signs, three on vertical info boards and two on horizontal ones. A tee sign with a wide notes area can use Auto or a count to use that room.

Space between sections

Both blocks also have a Section gap, under Style. It sets the space between sections, in millimeters at the template's design size. The same space applies between sections stacked down the sign and between sections side by side. Make it smaller when small section text leaves the sections far apart. Make it larger when sections run into each other.

A block with no Section gap of its own keeps its earlier spacing. Signs made before this setting existed look the same until you change it.

Pictures

A template has no setting for section pictures. Background images are a separate feature. You set where a section's picture sits and how big it is on the section in the Signage Editor. A picture always prints exactly as you uploaded it. It is never cropped. The template decides how many sections sit side by side, and so how wide each section is. A picture's size is a share of its own section.

Under centered text, a thumbnail and its words are centered together as one unit. The picture does not sit at the edge with the text floating beside it.

When there is too much to fit

Notes shrink to fit the space you gave them, but only to a limit. Type below about 3 mm is not readable at arm's length on a printed sign, so Parkdly stops shrinking there. If the notes still do not fit, the sign prints what fits and cuts off the rest. While you edit, the panel shows an amber dashed outline that reads Too much to fit — some content is cut off. Give the block more room, or shorten the notes.

Sizes are real, in your units

Padding, gaps, borders and radii show as real physical sizes at your chosen print size. They are millimeters on A-series sheets. They are inches on US sizes such as Letter or 18 × 24. Pick the size that you print on in the preview-size selector. The numbers you see are then the numbers you measure on the finished sign.

Templates are scale-free. The same design prints correctly at any size and keeps its proportions. A new print size changes only the ruler, never the design.

Shapes and preview sizes

A template has a native shape (its aspect ratio). You choose it in the wizard and change it in the Shapes card of the template settings, with Default shape. The catalog covers A-series (A4, A3, A5), US Letter and Legal, and the common poster ratios: 4:5 (8×10 and 16×20 in), 3:4 (9×12 and 18×24 in) and 2:3 (12×18 and 24×36 in). Horizontal templates also offer the DiscGolfPark 520 × 400 mm holder shape. The print sizes that Parkdly offers for a template are the ones that match its shape.

A template can also preview in other shapes to check that the design still works. Use the Preview size select. The Shape preview chip above the canvas tells you when you look at a non-default shape.

Safe area

A print shop's cutter can be off by a millimeter or two, so text and logos right at the edge can get clipped. With the layout grid on, a dashed magenta line shows the safe area: 3 mm inside the sign's edge, at the chosen preview size. Keep text, logos and codes inside it. Backgrounds, boxes and the map may run to the edge.

When content reaches past the line, the note at the top of the canvas names it, for example "Parkdly credit is 1.5 mm from the cut edge at this size". Click the note to select the block. Nothing moves on its own. The same design has more room at a bigger print size, so the note can disappear when you pick a larger preview size.

Allow more than one shape

A sign that uses your template renders at the template's native shape. The sign's Aspect Ratio selector does not show. Your design is guaranteed only at the shape you drew it at, so Parkdly does not offer to reflow it into shapes you have not checked.

To offer more shapes, tick them under Also allow in the Shapes card. Preview each one first. The eye toggle next to each shape does this. The shapes you allow become the choices on the sign. When you assign the template to a tee sign or an info board, its Aspect Ratio selector lists exactly those shapes.

Custom templates differ from built-in templates in this one way. Built-in templates ship with every standard shape already allowed.

Layout intent

The palette's "This sign is for" choice tells the editor what the sign serves: one Layout, several Layouts that share Hole numbers, or several Layouts with different numbers. It filters the blocks that fit. For example, one big Hole Number block does not make sense when every Layout renumbers its Holes. The palette disables it and says why. The Hole Info block, which shows each Layout on its own row, takes its place.

Preview with real data

By default, the preview fills your design with sample data. The Test data panel changes the sample. Its scenarios are Typical, Sections, Minimal, Empty, Max and Imperial. Use them to check how the design behaves with long names, many Layouts or missing notes. You can also change single fields, such as Hole number, notes and sponsors.

To preview one of your own signs, open the studio from a course. A select in the Preview data group then lists that course's signs of the template's kind. It starts on Sample data. Choose a sign. The preview then renders your template with that sign's real Hole, notes, QR code, sponsors and Layout colors. Parkdly hides the Test data button while a real sign is selected. It is the fastest way to find out if a design works on your actual course.

The course map stays a placeholder here. It shows as a marked-up box, not your real Holes. Everything around it is real. You can size and position the map area with confidence. Apply the template to a sign to see the map drawn in.

Edit the template as JSON (advanced)

A template is a single JSON document. The Edit JSON button is at the bottom of the right-hand panel. It opens the whole template when nothing is selected. It opens only the selected block when a block is selected. You can copy the text. You can also edit it in place and click Apply. Parkdly checks every change before it applies it, so an invalid edit cannot break your template. You can undo an applied change like any other edit.

You never need this to design a sign. The visual editor covers everything. It is useful to copy a block's exact settings between templates or to make a precise change by hand.

Work faster

• Arrow keys nudge the selected block one grid cell. Shift + arrows resize it one cell. This works on blocks that you placed on the sign grid. It does not work on blocks inside a Box.
• Ctrl/Cmd + D duplicates the selected block.
• Delete or Backspace removes the selected block.
• Esc cancels a pending placement, then clears the selection.
• Ctrl/Cmd + Z undoes. Add Shift to redo.
• The mouse wheel zooms. Dragging empty canvas pans. On a touch screen, pinch with two fingers to zoom and pan. Recenter view, at the top right under undo and redo, fits the whole sign back into view.
• Right-click a block or layer for its quick actions.

Shortcuts do not work while the focus is in a form field.

Apply a template to your signs

Custom templates show under My templates in the same template picker that you use in the Signage Editor.

1. Open a sign's details.
2. Choose Change.
3. Pick your template.

To apply a template to many signs at once, use the bulk Change template action.

Keep these two points in mind:

• Published edits follow the template. If signs use your template and you publish a change later, those signs update too. Your library shows how many signs use each template. The editor header shows how many courses a Publish reaches. See Draft and Publish.
• Deleting is safe. When you delete a template, its signs return to the built-in template they are based on. Nothing else is affected. Parkdly also deletes the background images that you uploaded to that template.

Plans

Designing a template is open on every plan. Applying a template to your signs is included in Club and higher plans.

Free and Hobby include one template slot. It is enough to design a template, preview it against a real course, and see how it would look before you decide if a plan is worth it. The new-template wizard tells you this upfront.

Club includes 3 template slots. Pro 15 includes 10, Pro 30 includes 20 and Pro 50 includes 50. The studio page shows your slots, for example "2 / 3 used", and explains the upgrade path when you reach the limit.

Templates already in your library stay yours on every plan. You can always view, edit and delete them. A downgrade never deletes a template. It only stops you from applying one to a sign.