QR generator
Make a QR code,
then watch it get read back
Type anything and this draws a QR code for it. Then it decodes the picture it just drew — the pixels, not the data it started from — and shows you what a scanner gets. Everything happens in this tab; nothing you type is sent anywhere.
A link, a phone number, a wifi string, or plain text. Longer text means a denser code.
Your code
Type something above and the code appears here.
What this will not tell you
- Whether it scans from a poster
- That depends on print size, distance, lighting and the camera. Those are measurements taken with a real scanner and a real print, and we have not taken them — so no figure is offered here rather than one being borrowed from somebody else’s blog.
- How much damage it survives
- QR carries error correction and every generator quotes a percentage for it. The honest version of that number is a scan rate measured across real damage on real prints, which is again not something we have measured.
- Nothing here is a short link
- Some generators make a code that points at an address they own, so the destination can be edited later. That is a promise to keep serving that address forever, and a printed code cannot be revised when it is not kept. This code points where you typed, and nowhere else.
- There is no logo overlay
- Putting a logo in the middle covers modules. Our own read-back panel is what rules it out: punch a hole through the centre and the decode stops. We would have to ship something our own verdict calls broken, or hide the verdict.
Questions
Does the code expire, or stop working?
No. The code points at exactly what you typed, so there is nothing of ours in the middle that could go away. Generators offering an editable destination put their own address inside the code, which means it keeps working only as long as they keep serving it — and a printed code cannot be revised when they stop.
Can I put a logo in the middle?
Not here, and the read-back panel is the reason. A logo covers modules; cover enough of the centre and the decode stops, which is held as a test in this project rather than asserted. Offering the feature would mean shipping something our own verdict calls broken, or hiding the verdict.
Will it scan from a poster?
We cannot tell you. That depends on print size, distance, lighting and the camera, and those are measurements taken with a real scanner and a real print. We have not taken them, so no figure is offered here rather than one being borrowed.
What does the read-back panel actually check?
It renders the code to pixels and decodes that image, rather than re-reading the data the code was built from. Re-reading the source would always agree with itself. Decoding the picture is the same thing a phone camera does, so the panel can disagree — and a check that cannot disagree is decoration.
Is what I type sent anywhere?
No. The code is drawn and decoded in this tab, and no request carries your text. That matters more here than on most pages, because what people encode is often a campaign link, a phone number, or a wifi password.
Once the code is made
A printed code is only as good as the link inside it. The campaign builder assembles a tagged URL and shows you what each parameter does, so the code you print carries something you can actually measure.
Build a campaign link