QR Code Generator

Generated in your browser, and yours to keep

Encode a URL, plain text, Wi-Fi credentials, a vCard contact, an email, a phone number, an SMS or a calendar event. The code is drawn in your browser as you type, so nothing is uploaded and your data never reaches a server — which matters most for Wi-Fi passwords and contact details, the two content types people most often paste into a QR generator without thinking about it.

Download as PNG or JPG for general use, or SVG when the code will be printed. SVG is vector, so it stays perfectly sharp at any size — essential for anything going on a poster, a vehicle, or packaging, where a raster image scaled up produces soft edges that scanners struggle with.

These codes do not expire

The QR code you generate here is static: the data is encoded directly into the pattern. It will keep working forever, needs no account, and depends on no service staying online.

That is a genuine distinction worth understanding. Many free QR generators produce dynamic codes that encode a short link on their own domain, which then redirects to your destination. Those are convenient — you can change the target later and see scan analytics — but the code stops working entirely if that company shuts down, changes its pricing, or deletes your account. Printed materials carrying a dead redirect are an expensive mistake, and it has happened to plenty of businesses.

The trade-off is that a static code cannot be edited after printing. If you genuinely need to change the destination later, point the QR code at a URL you control — your own short link or a redirect page on your own domain — and change where that URL forwards to. You keep the ability to update it without depending on anyone else's service.

Making a code that actually scans

Most scanning failures come from a handful of avoidable causes:

• Too small. Roughly 2 × 2 cm is the practical minimum for a code scanned close up. For distance, the rule of thumb is that the code should be about a tenth of the scanning distance — a code read from 2 metres wants to be around 20 cm across.
• No quiet zone. QR codes need clear space around them, about four modules wide. Crowding the code against text or artwork is one of the commonest reasons a scan fails.
• Inverted colours. Scanners expect a dark pattern on a light background. Light-on-dark defeats many readers, and low contrast between the two defeats nearly all of them.
• Too much data. Long URLs make a dense pattern with small modules that is harder to scan and needs to be printed larger. Shorten the link first.
• Placed where nobody can scan it. Out of arm's reach, on a moving vehicle, or on a screen a phone camera cannot focus on.

Error correction and why codes still work when damaged

QR codes carry redundant data, so a proportion of the pattern can be obscured and the code still reads. The four levels recover roughly 7, 15, 25 and 30 percent of the code respectively. Higher correction means a denser pattern for the same content, so it is a trade rather than a free upgrade.

The practical uses are printing in an environment where the code may get scuffed or partly covered, and placing a small logo in the centre — which works precisely because the redundancy absorbs the loss. Keep any logo well under the correction level you have chosen, and always test the finished code before printing thousands of them.

Test before you print

Scan the final artwork, at final size, on more than one phone — ideally one iPhone and one Android — and under the lighting the code will actually live in. Test the printed proof rather than the screen, since print contrast and paper finish both matter. A glossy laminate under bright light can produce glare that makes an otherwise perfect code unreadable.