How to Use Sketch and Inscription

Find the Sketch & Inscription step at Step 4 of the New Quote. It's where you enter each decedent's information and draw a visual sketch of the monument with your customer. Think of it as your pen-and-paper drawing board, but digital. This step appears for both monument orders and service orders.

Decedent Information

For each decedent, fill in:

Given Names (the first and middle name) and Surname, both optional. If you already entered decedent names in the Cemetery & Logistics step when adding plot information, these fields are filled in for you. You can leave them blank if you don't have the names yet.

Dates: a Date of Birth field and a Date of Death field. Both accept any text format. Type the date however you want it to appear. Examples that all work:

• “April 3rd 2026”

• “Mar 25 2026”

• “March 25, 2026”

• “March 2026”

• “2026”

• “04/03/2026”

Whatever you type is saved and displayed exactly as you typed it. The system does not change or reformat your text.

You can also click the calendar icon next to the field to pick a date from a calendar. The picker fills in MM/DD/YYYY format, and you can edit the text afterward if you want a different style.

Additional Text. Enter any further inscription text that goes on the monument, an epitaph for example.

Multiple decedents

The decedents sit in a pill bar at the top of the Inscription section: Decedent 1, Decedent 2 and so on. Click a pill to edit that person. Three buttons sit beside the bar:

• + adds a blank decedent.

• The copy icon duplicates the decedent you are on, its fields and its lettering and carving styling included.

• The trash icon deletes the decedent you are on. It shows only once there are two or more.

When you move on from this step, MonuDesk tidies up your decedent list as it saves: completely blank rows are dropped, and exact duplicates (matching on given names, surname, middle name, birth, and death) collapse into a single entry. So if you duplicate a decedent and leave the copy unedited, the two will merge back into one on save, which is expected.

One decedent list across the order

The decedents on this step, the plot rows under Cemetery & Plot Details on Step 2, and the people on a service order's Lettering & Inscription card are one list. Name someone in any of those places and they appear in the others; remove them in one place and they leave the order.

Because of that, removing a plot row on Step 2 asks first when that person carries inscription work. The dialog is headed with their name, for example Remove Mary Jones?, and reads "This person is on the whole order, not just this plot", then names what goes with them from Sketch & Inscription, such as their per-field engraving selections, surname on both sides, design notes or maiden name. Click Keep them to stop, or Remove to go ahead.

Marking an order as customer pickup on Step 2 clears the cemetery, and the plot and decedent details you already entered are kept, so the names on this step stay exactly as you left them.

The Sketch Builder

The Sketch Builder is the canvas where you sketch the monument with your customer. Before you draw anything you'll see a Start Your Sketch prompt with a few hints to get going.

Every sketch has two sides: a Front Side and a Back Side. A coloured side badge in the top-right corner shows which side you're on (blue for FRONT and green for BACK), and you can click it to flip between them. As you drag elements around, alignment guides appear and snap edges into line so your layout stays tidy. If your design grows taller than the canvas, a See more button expands the view to fit everything (and See less shrinks it back).

Toolbar tools

The toolbar runs across the top of the canvas. The "add" tools, left to right, are:

• Monument: places a headstone shape on the canvas.

• Bench: adds a memorial bench (seat only, or with a backrest).

• Box: adds a rectangle or base shape.

• Circle: adds a circle, handy for a vase or accent.

• Heart: adds a heart shape.

• Line: adds a straight line.

• Draw: turns on the free-draw pencil so you can sketch freehand. Click Draw again to stop drawing.

• Arrow: adds a dimension or callout arrow. Hold one of the blue circles with your mouse to stretch the arrow toward whatever you want to point at. This is great for combining with text so your designer knows exactly what to draw. Arrows only appear on the side you add them to. An arrow added to the Front Side won't show on the Back Side.

• Text: adds a text inscription. A small text box opens; type your text, then click Done. The new text lands in the centre of the canvas, and you drag it into place.

• Photo: uploads a photo or piece of artwork directly onto the canvas.

To the right of a divider you'll find Bring forward and Send backward (to move a selected element up or down the layer order), followed by Undo, Redo, and Delete selected. These buttons stay visible even when nothing is selected, so you can always see what they do.

Shapes and the Settings panel

A Settings panel sits below the canvas and stays on screen the whole time so the canvas never jumps around. It's dimmed when nothing is selected and lights up when you click an element, showing the controls that fit what you picked.

When a shape is selected you get:

• Outline colour: the colour of the shape's edge.

• Fill colour: a paint-bucket control. Picking a colour also turns the fill on, so there's no separate "fill shapes" switch to flip first.

• Outline thickness: opens a slider you can set from 1 to 10.

The Monument tool places a die and a separate, slightly wider base beneath it. They're added together but are two independent objects, so you can click the base on its own to move or resize it.

For monument shapes, a Stone Profile picker lets you click a thumbnail to choose the top shape: Serp top, Flat, Wave top, Oval top, or Triangle. Box shapes have their own set of profiles, and Bench shapes let you pick Seat only or With backrest. A shape settings gear opens per-profile geometry sliders (things like corner radius, depth, curve start, angle, and wave intensity), so you can fine-tune the exact silhouette.

Working with elements

When you select any element on the canvas, drag it to reposition it or drag its corners to resize it. Use Bring forward and Send backward in the toolbar to change the layer order when elements overlap, and Undo / Redo to step back and forth through your changes. To remove an element, select it and click Delete selected.

Fonts and text styling

When you select a text element, the Settings panel shows text controls:

Font lets you choose from Times Roman, Arial, Optima, Cinzel, Copperplate, Futura, Cormorant Garamond, and EB Garamond.

Text size can be set with a slider, and Text colour changes the colour of the text.

Design Notes and attachments

Below the sketch you'll find a Design Notes card. Use the notes box for instructions to your designer. These are kept separate from production notes and order notes, and they print on the shop ticket in their own Design Notes block — one block when every decedent shares the same notes, or one labeled block per decedent (for example Design Notes — Jane Doe) when the notes differ.

They also print on the Contract when it is generated with no drawings ticked: under Additional Details, below the Lettering box, with the same one-block or one-block-per-decedent rule, and long notes flow across pages. A plot with no decedent name is labeled by its plot number instead, for example Design Notes — Plot 2. The quote, invoice and receipt never carry design notes. You can edit them after the order is saved in its Notes & Files tab, where each plot's note shows as a Design Notes pill.

Attach file (the paperclip) sits in the header of the Inscription card on this step. Use it for an emblem, a reference image or any other file: it accepts any file type. The file uploads straight away. If the upload does not go through you get Upload failed, "Could not upload the file. Please try again."

Attached files are listed by name under the Inscription header, and clicking a name opens it in a new tab. They stay attached when you finish and reopen the order; they appear in the Order Overview as Reference documents and are internal-only by default, so they won't show in the customer portal unless you choose to share them.

The Review & Create step shows an Uploaded files card listing every file you attached here, with an image thumbnail for PNG, JPG, WEBP, GIF and HEIC files. Each entry opens in a new tab, so you can check the attachments before you save the order.

An image you attach here is also offered in the Select images picker when you generate a document, so an emblem or a reference photo can be printed on a quote, contract, shop ticket, foundation order or purchase order. It is not ticked for you — only drawings and sketches are — so tick it when you actually want it on the page.

One thing to note: an emblem can only be attached after the quote has been created. If you try before then, you'll see "An emblem can be attached once the quote has been created." Save the quote first, then attach.

Exporting your sketch

You can export your sketch by clicking the export button. Available formats are PNG, PLT (plotter), and DXF (CAD).

Sketches on PDFs

When you save the sketch, MonuDesk turns it into a drawing file and attaches it to the order automatically. The drawing file is set to Internal by default so it stays hidden from the customer portal.

On a saved order you can also upload a Front or Back sketch image straight from the drawing area on the order's Order Details tab (Click to upload a drawing, or Replace). Right after that upload MonuDesk asks Show this drawing to the family? and explains: "It appears in the customer portal under drawings, where the family can approve it or ask for changes. Keeping it internal leaves it in Notes & Files only." Choose Show to the family or Keep internal.

When you generate a quote, invoice, receipt or contract, the sketch is offered in a Select images picker alongside every other image on the order, and it starts ticked, because a sketch counts as the monument artwork. The shop ticket uses the same picker but starts with nothing ticked, so tick the sketch when the shop needs it. Reference photos are listed but left unticked while the order has artwork. Untick anything you don't want on that document.

The picker opens whenever the order has at least one image it can list, or a saved cemetery location map, so a single drawing is enough to bring it up. An order with no listable image and no map generates straight away.

You can untick every image and still press Generate. The dialog then shows "No images selected. The [document] will carry the order's inscription details instead of a drawing." The document is produced with no drawing images, and the copy kept on the order, shown in the customer portal and sent with a notify email is the same one you download.

A quote, invoice, receipt or contract generated that way prints an Additional Details section in place of the drawing pages: a box headed Lettering listing, per decedent (Decedent, or Decedent 1 and Decedent 2), the Given Names, Surname, Dates, Additional Text and Facing you entered, showing only the fields that carry text. Only the inscription text prints on these customer documents; engraving styles stay on the shop ticket. The section is left out entirely when there is nothing to show.

On the shop ticket, unticking every drawing removes the drawing images, and its lettering, engraving styles and design notes print as usual.

The Foundation Order and Purchase Order use the same picker but start with nothing ticked and cap you at two images, so tick the sketch yourself if the cemetery or the vendor needs it.

If you edit the sketch later, the attached drawing file regenerates. Each side's drawing is handled on its own: replacing or deleting the front side leaves the back side untouched, and vice versa. Deleting a side removes its drawing permanently.

When you're done, click Next to continue to How to Set Up Billing and Payment.

Related articles:

• How to Set Up Lettering and Carving

• How to Set Up Billing and Payment

• How to Review and Finalize Your Order