How to use it

Type your business name, the line underneath it, and your menu. One item per line, in the form Item | 9.50 | short description. Start a new section with ## Section name — Breakfast, Sandwiches, Drafts, whatever your board needs.

The board redraws as you type and fits itself to the screen automatically, so a four-item lunch board and a sixty-item diner menu both fill the space properly. When it looks right, hit Download PNG and you have a 1920×1080 image.

Why 1920 by 1080

The panel behind this is 4K — 3840×2160. We design boards at 1920×1080 because type has to be readable from the counter, and 1080p scales cleanly onto a 4K screen. You lose nothing you would notice; what you would lose by designing at 4K is the ability to read the menu.

That is the resolution of the commercial displays used in almost every restaurant, bar and lobby install — 1080p, sixteen by nine, landscape. Building to that size means what you see here is what shows up on the wall, with no stretching, no letterboxing and no text that looked fine on a laptop and is unreadable from a table.

If you are sending the file to a printer for a temporary paper menu, 1920×1080 is still the right shape: it prints cleanly at 13 by 7 inches, which covers most counter and window holders.

What it does not do

It makes one board, once. It does not update prices at 4pm when the kitchen runs out of something, and it does not change the lunch menu over at 11. That is the difference between a picture of a menu board and an actual digital menu board, and it is the part that needs a player, a screen and someone to keep the content current.

Most restaurants start exactly here — a design they like, on paper — and then move it onto a screen once they have lived with it for a week or two.

Want it done for you

If you would rather have it done for you, hand us your menu and we will build the boards on your own branding — that starts with the free consultation, no charge and no obligation. Call 724-826-8292 or use the form on the contact page.