JimGenerate Once you add a link we'll generate the QR code for you
A QR code is a picture of some text. Point a phone camera at it and the phone reads the text back out, and if that text is a link, the phone offers to open it. There is no account behind it and no service keeping it alive, which is why a code printed on a wall in 2015 still works today. To create a QR code here you paste the URL and press the button, and the picture is drawn on this page.
That is worth knowing because a lot of free QR code generators do not give you that. They give you a short link pointing at their own server, and the code on your poster is really a redirect they control. It works until the free tier changes or the company goes away, and then every copy you printed is dead. This one writes your link into the code itself, so the only thing that can break it is your link changing.
Both hold the same link. The difference is what happens when you resize them.
A grid of pixels at a fixed size. Right for anywhere the code stays on a screen at roughly the size you downloaded: a slide, a chat message, an email, a social post, a web page. Every tool opens one, and you can paste it straight in. Blow a QR code PNG up much past its own size and the squares go soft at the edges, which is the point at which a phone starts to struggle with it.
Instructions for drawing the code rather than a picture of it, so it is redrawn sharp at whatever size it is used. Right for anything printed: a poster, a menu, signage, packaging, a sticker. A printer or a designer will ask for this one. A QR code SVG is usually the smaller file too, and it opens in Illustrator, Figma, Inkscape and the rest for recolouring or placing.
Anything a phone can open: a website, a menu, a form, a playlist, a phone number page. Any URL works, and you can leave off the https because it will be added for you.
The code appears straight away. It is drawn in your browser, so nothing is uploaded and there is nothing to wait for.
PNG for a screen, SVG for print, or copy the image straight to the clipboard and paste it where you need it. All three include the white margin, which is the part scanners use to find the code at all.
As a rough guide, a code needs to be about a tenth as wide as the distance somebody will scan it from. A table card is fine at an inch. A code across a car park is not.
A QR code is just a link, so anything with a URL works.
One code on the table, and the menu is edited on your own site rather than reprinted.
Point it at a form so people fill it in on their own phone instead of passing a clipboard round.
A code is faster than typing a long address off a wall, and it survives being photographed.
Instructions, a spare parts page, or a how-to video, without printing any of it on the box.
Yes, and there is no account. The code is made in your browser rather than on a server, so there is nothing for us to meter.
No. The code contains your link rather than a redirect through us, so there is no service in the middle that could stop working. It keeps working for as long as the link you put in it does.
PNG if it is going on a screen at about the size you downloaded it, which covers slides, chat, email and web pages. SVG if it is going to be printed or resized, because an SVG is redrawn sharp at any size while a PNG goes soft once you push it past its own. If you are handing it to a printer or a designer, give them the SVG. Both files hold the same link and both include the white margin.
Yes. A QR code is a way of writing down a link and the picture is yours to use. Print it on whatever you like.
No. The whole code is built in the page you are looking at, with no network request, so the link never leaves your device and there is nothing for us to store.
Keep the width at roughly a tenth of the scanning distance, and keep the white margin around it. That margin is not decoration: scanners use it to find the edges of the code, and cropping it off is the most common reason a printed code will not scan.
Not on a code that is already printed, because the link is written into the pattern itself. If you need to redirect it later, point the code at a short link on a domain you control, and change where that goes.
Usually one of three things: the white margin has been cropped, it has been printed too small for the distance, or it has been put on a dark or patterned background. QR codes need dark on light with a clear border.
This page hands you both. If you already know the code is going on a slide, into a chat or under an email signature, the QR code PNG page is written for that, down to how small it can go before a camera gives up.
If it is going to be printed, resized or handed to a designer, read the QR code SVG page instead. Same tool, and it covers what a vector gets you and the one edit that quietly stops a code scanning.
Paste a link at the top of the page and the code is ready before you finish reading this. It is free, and this QR code maker runs entirely in your browser, so there is nothing to sign up for.
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