Make your first QR code

Six steps from an empty account to a code you can print.

Making it

1. Sign in and open QR codes, then press New code.
2. Choose what the code is for — a website, a contact card, Wi-Fi, an event, and so on. The form underneath changes to match.
3. Fill it in. The preview on the right updates as you type; what you see is what will be encoded.
4. Open Options and decide whether it is dynamic. Dynamic is the default and is almost always what you want.
5. Style it if you like: your logo in the middle, your colours, a frame with a caption. Everything you change is checked against a scan test before you can download it.
6. Give it a name so you recognise it in the list later, then press Create code.

Getting it out

Use the Export panel under the preview. PNG for screens, SVG or PDF or EPS for print, JPG and GIF where something insists on them.

For anything going to a printer, choose a vector format and set the physical width in millimetres. A PNG scaled up by a print shop is a blurry code, and a blurry code does not scan.

Before you print a thousand of them

Scan it yourself, from the actual printed proof, at the distance people will really stand. Then scan it with a second phone — an old one if you have one.

A rule of thumb for distance: the code should be about a tenth as wide as the distance it will be scanned from. A code read from two metres wants to be about twenty centimetres across.