How do I create a QR Code?

They're trying to charge you $500 to generate a QR Code for your business card? What a racket! I should get into that business. Then again, so can you, once you've finished reading this article, I suppose. Does that mean I'm aiding and abetting? :-)

QR Codes are very nifty and are a spin-off of UPC bar codes, though there were a few evolutionary steps along the way. The problem with bar codes is that they take up a lot of space to encode a surprisingly small amount of information: A typical bar code is only 10 digits long. Worse, bar codes have a specific orientation and if you don't have your reader oriented correctly, it can't understand the code. (modern readers scan in mutiple orientations at once -- the burst of red laser lines -- to sidestep this issue).

Still, the idea of "quick response codes" is that they can orient themselves in a scanning utility, be it a cellphone camera or a fancier device. It does this with the black and white squares on three corners, not all four, of the code.

Here's an example QR Code so you know what I'm talking about:

This particular QR Code will take you to my film blog, Dave On Film.

How did I do that? Turns out there are a bunch of free QR Code generators on the Web, and the one I like to use is at http://qrcode.kaywa.com/.

Go there and here's what you'll see:

It's easy enough to use. Simply decide which type of information you want to encode in your QR Code, enter the data, and click "Generate".

For example, I'll create a text QR Code based on a popular phrase in the musical My Fair Lady, then click on the Generate button:

To save the QR Code, the easiest is to right-click (or Ctrl-click if you're a Mac user) on the code displayed...

When you save it, make sure you give the graphic the correct image type suffix: some browsers default to ".php", which won't work. Use ".png" instead.

The result as a standalone graphic you can include in your business card editor, on your Web page, or even make into a sticker as you desire:

Now about that $500...

I should also point out that Kaywa says "not for commercial use" on their QR Code generation tool, so if you're going to use it for lots of commercial apps, or to generate hundreds of product codes, you would do best to contact them directly to find out about their preferred usage terms.

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