Printing menu cards and buffet signs

For the buffet and the tables you need signs that say what is on offer and what is in it. Univents creates them as a PDF straight from the dishes you already have in the quote or in the bookings. Allergens, dietary information and meat type come from the products, the logo from your company details.

Menu cards and buffet signs are available from the Growth plan. On the Core plan you still see the button; clicking it shows you how to unlock the feature. The symbols on the quote PDF are available on every plan (see below).

Preparing the dishes

1. Go to Inventory and open the dish.
2. In the Allergens & diets block, choose the allergens with the 14 buttons (cereals containing gluten, crustaceans, eggs, fish, peanuts, soybeans, milk, tree nuts, celery, mustard, sesame, sulphur dioxide and sulphites, lupin, molluscs). A second click removes the allergen again. You can still type your own entries.
3. Under Dietary information, choose Vegan, Vegetarian, Gluten-free, Lactose-free, Halal or Kosher.
4. Under Meat type, choose Beef, Pork, Poultry, Lamb/Game or Fish.
5. Under Name on menu cards, enter what the dish should be called on the sign — with your own line breaks, e.g. “Beef fillet” on the first line and “from the grill” on the second. Left empty, the product name is printed. For English cards there is Name on menu cards (English); left empty, the English product name is printed, otherwise the German one.
6. Click Save.

Allergens that a recipe or package inherits from its ingredients are printed on the sign automatically. Dietary information and meat type are not inherited — a dish is only vegan if you set it on the dish itself.

Entries that Univents cannot assign clearly to one of the 14 allergens (e.g. “garlic” or “may contain traces of nuts”) are printed as text without a symbol.

Creating signs and cards

1. Open the quote (under PDF settings) or the Bookings tab of the event.
2. Click Menu & buffet signs.
3. Choose the format:
   • Buffet sign A6 landscape — one sign per dish to stand up
   • Folding table tent — one A4 page per dish; fold it in the middle and the text reads from both sides
   • Menu card A5 or A4 — all selected dishes on one card, sorted by course for a buffet, with a heading of your choice
4. Choose the language: German, English or German and English. On a menu card, every German page is then followed by the English one — so you can print it double-sided. On a sign, both languages are printed one below the other.
5. Decide whether the dish descriptions are printed.
6. Tick the dishes you need. From a quote you can choose all products and the dishes of buffet blocks, from the bookings all booked products. Rental items and services are not listed.
7. Click Create PDF. The file is downloaded.

Every sign shows your logo, the name, optionally the description, the symbols and the allergens written out (“Contains: …”). The menu card has a legend at the bottom with exactly the symbols that appear on it.

Menu card in both languages: up to one page per language

With German and English, the German card is followed by the English one. If the card fits on one page per language, print it double-sided: German on the front, English on the back. If it runs longer than one page per language, all German pages come first, then all English pages — when printed double-sided, the second German page would end up on the back of the first. Print such cards single-sided or create a separate card for each language.

The symbols

• Allergens are shown as a letter in a circle — the codes commonly used in Austria: A cereals containing gluten, B crustaceans, C eggs, D fish, E peanuts, F soybeans, G milk, H tree nuts, L celery, M mustard, N sesame, O sulphites, P lupin, R molluscs.
• Diets are shown as an abbreviation in a box: VG vegan, VE vegetarian, GF gluten-free, LF lactose-free, HA halal, KO kosher.
• Meat type: RI beef, SW pork, GE poultry, LW lamb/game, FI fish.

Symbols on the quote PDF

Independently of the signs, you can show the symbols directly on the quote — on every plan:

1. Open the document.
2. Under PDF settings, switch on Show allergen and dietary symbols (with legend).
3. Create the PDF again.

Every item name is then followed by its symbols, and below the totals there is a legend with the symbols used in the document. For a buffet block, the item shows all allergens of its dishes; “vegan” or “vegetarian” is only shown if it applies to every dish of the buffet. On a document that has already been issued, the allergens frozen at issue apply.

Allergens that Univents cannot assign to one of the 14 codes (e.g. “peanut and sesame”) and notes such as “May contain traces of nuts” are written out in small print after the item’s symbols — just like on the signs. If a dish of a buffet block no longer exists in your products, the item shows “Allergen information incomplete”. Check the block before you send the quote.

If the PDF combines identical items into one line, that line shows the allergens of all combined items; “vegan” or “vegetarian” is only shown if it applies to each of them.

The symbols are printed by the new layout (HTML layout). A document with a Word template does not show them.

If you want the switch for every new document, set it as a default under Settings → Finance documents → Finance document display.

In the AI chat

You can also write: “Create buffet signs for the quote Summer party, German and English.” The assistant creates the PDF and gives you a download link that is valid for one hour.