Free QR Code Generator

How to make a QR code

1. Pick what the code should contain — a link, plain text, a Wi-Fi network, an email address, a phone number or a text message.
2. Type the content. The preview updates as you type, so you can scan it straight off the screen with your phone to check it before downloading.
3. Open Appearance and quality if you need a specific size, different colours or a higher error correction level.
4. Download it as a PNG for screens, or as an SVG for print. Both files are built in your browser and never sent anywhere.

Choosing the right error correction level

Every QR code carries redundant data so it can still be read when part of the pattern is damaged, dirty or covered. You choose how much redundancy to include, and the trade-off is always the same: more recovery means a denser pattern, which needs to be printed larger to stay scannable.

• Low (7%) — clean digital use only, such as a code on a website or in a slide deck.
• Medium (15%) — the sensible default, and what most printed material should use.
• Quartile (25%) — outdoor signage, packaging, or anywhere the surface may get scuffed.
• High (30%) — required if you plan to place a logo in the centre of the code, since the logo destroys part of the pattern.

Printing a QR code so it actually scans

Most scanning failures in the real world come down to physical problems rather than the code itself. Three rules cover nearly all of them.

Print it big enough. A useful rule of thumb is that the code should be at least one tenth of the distance it will be scanned from. A poster read from two metres away needs a code around 20 cm across. For a business card, 2 cm square is the practical minimum.

Keep the quiet zone. The blank margin around the pattern is part of the specification, not decoration — scanners use it to find where the code begins. Cropping it off is the single most common way a working code is accidentally broken.

Do not invert the colours. A dark pattern on a light background is what scanners expect. Light-on-dark codes work on some phones and fail on others, which is a bad bet for anything printed in quantity.

A note on Wi-Fi QR codes

A Wi-Fi code stores your network name and password directly inside the image, in plain text. That is what lets a guest connect by pointing their camera at it, with no typing. It also means anyone who can see the image can extract the password, so print it for a guest network rather than your main one, and treat the downloaded file the way you would treat the password written on a card.

Android has supported scanning these from the camera since Android 10, and iPhones since iOS 11. Both handle hidden networks correctly as long as you tick the hidden-network option.

Static codes and what they cannot do

The codes generated here are static: the destination is encoded in the pattern itself. Nothing sits between the scanner and the destination, so there is no service that can expire, rate-limit you or start charging a subscription. The trade-off is that you cannot change where the code points after printing it, and you get no scan statistics.

If either of those matters, point the code at a URL you control — a page on your own site that redirects, or a tracked short link. You keep the permanence of a static code while retaining the ability to change the destination and count visits.