Make a QR code that goes straight to your link
A QR code is a grid of light and dark squares that spells out a short piece of text, and a camera reads that text straight back off it. Put a link, a note, your Wi-Fi details or a contact card in the panel above and one comes back as an SVG to print and a PNG for a screen. What is inside it is what you typed: nothing in front of your address, nothing counting the scans behind it, and no account to make.
Make a QR code
Put in a link, a note, the Wi-Fi details or a contact card, and the square that comes out carries exactly that. There is no redirect through anybody else, no scan counter behind it and no account, so the code keeps working for as long as whatever it points at does.
If you leave the https off, it goes on. The address in the code is the one you typed and nothing is put in front of it.
A Wi-Fi code carries the password as plain readable text. That is how the format works everywhere, not something this does differently. Anyone who can photograph the code has the password, so put it on the wall of a cafe and not on the internet.
The usual answer, and the one to keep unless something else here applies. The quiet zone is the empty margin the standard asks for, four squares wide. It is the usual reason a code that worked on screen will not scan off a busy page.
QR code generator, step by step
- Say what goes in itA link, a line of text, the network name and password, or the fields of a contact card. The panel shows you the exact string it is about to encode.
- Set it up for where it is goingError correction for how rough a life the code will have, pixels per square for how big the PNG comes out, and the empty margin around it.
- Take the SVG or the PNGSVG for anything printed, because it stays sharp at any size on any press. PNG for a screen, written at a whole number of pixels per square so no edge is blurred.
The three things that decide whether a printed code actually scans
The first is the quiet zone, the empty margin the standard puts at four squares on every side. A reader finds the three corner markers by a 1:1:3:1:1 run of light and dark across them, and anything butted up against the code, a border or a photograph or a block of colour, breaks the outer end of that run. On a screen it usually still works, which is why it survives every test and fails on the printed menu. The second is error correction, which is real spare data rather than a setting: at the highest level about thirty per cent of the code can be destroyed and still recovered, and the price is a bigger grid for the same text, so every square is smaller at the same printed size. The third is that the picture is drawn at a whole number of pixels per square. Ask most tools for a code exactly five hundred pixels wide and each square lands on thirteen and a half pixels, so every boundary is smeared into a grey seam and a camera in a dim room has to guess which side it belongs to. This asks how many pixels each square should be and tells you the size that produces, which is the same decision made the other way round.
Search for a QR code generator and most of what comes back is not really a QR code generator. It is a link shortener with a picture on the front. The code you download encodes an address on their domain, that address forwards to yours, and the arrangement holds for as long as they want it to. That is why so many of them can afford to be free: the code is the beginning of a subscription, and the pressure point is that thousands of printed copies of it are already out in the world.
It is worth being clear about what that buys them and costs you. They get a count of every scan, which is genuinely useful and is the honest part of the pitch. You get a code with a company in the middle of it, an address that says nothing about you to anybody who reads it out, and a dependency you cannot patch: if the redirect stops, every sticker, poster and business card carrying it is dead at once, and there is nothing you can do to the paper.
There is a simple test for which kind you have. Scan your own code with any camera and look at the text it shows before you tap it. If it is your address, it is a QR code. If it is somebody else’s with a short string on the end, it is a redirect, and it will last exactly as long as they do.
Everything above works the other way round. The address in the code is the one you typed, and the panel prints the encoded string underneath so you can read it yourself rather than take anybody’s word for it. There is nothing to sign up for, no scan count to go and look at, and no way for this page to take the code away from you afterwards, because there is nothing in the middle to switch off. The trade is that if you do want scan counts, you need somewhere to point the code that can count them, which is a redirect you run rather than one you rent.
Questions
Why did the code I made somewhere else stop working?
Because most of the popular generators do not put your address in the code at all. They put their own, and the scan is forwarded on to you, so they get a count of every scan and you get a code that only works while they keep that redirect running. When the free tier changes or the company folds, the sticker on your window becomes a dead link. The code from this page holds your address and nothing else, so there is no middle to fail.
Which error correction level should I pick?
M unless something else applies. L is fine on a screen or on paper that will stay clean. Q is worth it for a sticker, a menu or anything that will be handled. H is for a window, a poster left outdoors, or a code you are going to put a mark over. Going up a level does not make the code more readable in general, it makes it survive damage, and it costs you a denser grid at the same printed size.
Can I put a logo in the middle of it?
Not here, and the reason is that doing it properly means checking afterwards that the result still reads. A mark in the centre covers real data, which the error correction can usually absorb, right up until the point where it cannot, and the failure is silent, because the picture looks perfect and the camera just sits there. A feature that produces a pretty code nobody can scan is worse than no feature, so this does not offer one.
Is it safe to put my Wi-Fi password in a code?
It depends entirely on who can see the code. The password is written into it as plain readable text, which is how the format works everywhere rather than anything this does differently, and any scanner will show it. Stuck to the wall of a room you control, that is fine and it is the point. Photographed and put on the internet, or printed on something that leaves the building, you have published your password.
Why is there a white margin around it, and can I take it off?
You can, and it is usually a mistake. That margin is the quiet zone and it is part of the code rather than decoration around it, because a reader needs clear space to find the corner markers against. You can set it to zero in the panel if you are laying the code out yourself and will leave the space some other way. Set it to zero and then put a border tight against the edge and you have a code that scans on your screen and not off the page.
Other things here
There is a full list on the free tools page. They all work the same way: in the browser, with nothing to install.
The tool is free. So is the thought.
This page did one small job. Edmund is for the thing you thought of while doing it: a capture app for iPhone, iPad and Mac that files a note the moment you have it, so it does not get lost between having it and writing it down.
See what Edmund does