Certificate Verification System

A modern, full-stack certificate management and verification platform built with the MERN stack.

Admins can bulk-upload certificate data via Excel, auto-generate PDF certificates, and deliver them to recipients via email — all from a single dashboard. Recipients can instantly verify the authenticity of any certificate using a unique ID.

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Table of Contents

• Features
• Tech Stack
• Project Structure
• Getting Started
• Environment Variables
• Usage
• Contributing
• License

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Features

Feature	Description
📤 Excel Upload	Bulk import recipient data via .xlsx files
📄 PDF Generation	Auto-generate certificates as downloadable PDFs
📧 Email Notifications	Send certificates directly to recipients via email
🔍 Certificate Verification	Public verification page using a unique certificate ID
🔐 Admin Panel	Secure dashboard to manage all certificates

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Tech Stack

Layer	Technology
Frontend	React.js
Backend	Node.js, Express.js
Database	MongoDB + Mongoose
PDF Generation	PDFKit / Puppeteer
Email Service	Nodemailer
Excel Parsing	xlsx / exceljs
Authentication	JSON Web Tokens (JWT)

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Project Structure

Certificate-verification-system/
│
├── backend/                  # Express REST API
│   ├── certificates/         # Generated PDF certificates
│   ├── uploads/              # Temporarily stores uploaded Excel files
│   ├── .env                  # Environment variables (not committed)
│   └── server.js             # Entry point
│
├── frontend/                 # React.js client
│   └── src/
│
├── other/                    # Additional scripts/assets
├── .gitignore
└── README.md

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Getting Started

Prerequisites

Ensure the following are installed on your system:

• Node.js v16 or higher
• MongoDB (local instance or MongoDB Atlas)
• npm (comes with Node.js)
• Git

Installation

1. Clone the repository

git clone https://github.com/itsmnx/Certificate-verification-system.git
cd Certificate-verification-system

2. Install backend dependencies

cd backend
npm install

3. Install frontend dependencies

cd ../frontend
npm install

4. Configure environment variables

cp backend/.env.example backend/.env

Fill in your values in the .env file (see Environment Variables below).

5. Start the development servers

# Terminal 1 — Backend
cd backend
npm start

# Terminal 2 — Frontend
cd frontend
npm start

Service	URL
Frontend	http://localhost:3000
Backend API	http://localhost:5000

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Environment Variables

Create a .env file inside the backend/ directory using the following template:

# MongoDB Connection
MONGO_URI=mongodb://localhost:27017/certificate-db

# Server
PORT=5000

# Authentication
JWT_SECRET=your_jwt_secret_here

# Email Configuration (Nodemailer)
EMAIL_HOST=smtp.gmail.com
EMAIL_PORT=587
EMAIL_USER=your_email@gmail.com
EMAIL_PASS=your_app_password_here

# CORS
CLIENT_URL=http://localhost:3000

⚠️ Important: Never commit your .env file. It is already listed in .gitignore.

Gmail Setup

If using Gmail as your email provider:

1. Enable 2-Factor Authentication on your Google account
2. Generate an App Password
3. Use that App Password as the value for EMAIL_PASS

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Usage

1. Admin Login — Sign in to the secure admin dashboard
2. Upload Excel — Import an .xlsx file containing recipient details (name, email, course, date, etc.)
3. Generate Certificates — The system auto-generates a PDF certificate for each recipient
4. Send Emails — Certificates are automatically emailed to all recipients
5. Verify Certificate — Anyone can visit the public verification page, enter a Certificate ID, and confirm its authenticity instantly

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Contributing

Contributions are welcome and appreciated! To contribute:

1. Fork the repository
2. Create a feature branch

   git checkout -b feature/your-feature-name

3. Commit your changes

   git commit -m "feat: describe your change"

4. Push to your branch

   git push origin feature/your-feature-name

5. Open a Pull Request and describe what you changed and why

Please check the Issues tab for open tasks before starting work.

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License

This project is open source. Contributions and forks are welcome.

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Made with ❤️ for the open source community