How To Create Your Own QR Codes
by D. Ford on 01/14/2012
What Are QR Codes?
I can imagine a time when proximity and a glance or gesture are translated by a chip in the brain's vision center into the same actions which are performed by Quick Response Codes today. But until that day arrives, we'll have to make do with QR Codes which are still pretty cool!
First, a little background: QR Codes are the successor to original numeric bar codes and while they've been used by the Asian auto industry for decades, QR Codes are becoming much more prevalent in the west due to their popularity with millions of smart phone users. They can contain hundreds of times more data than conventional bar codes and they can perform all sorts of useful operations like sending text messages, making phone calls, displaying text, adding contact information, and navigating the web. You can also customize them with your own unique branding by adding color, images, and logo's.
Let's start with a brief introduction to how QR Codes are used followed by a demonstration that will show you how to create your own personalized codes. At the end of this post, I also touch upon their dark side so you can protect yourself against malicious codes.
How Are QR Codes Used?
Other than industrial uses, there are lots of creative ways for QR Codes to be implemented such as on business cards for quick access to contact information; in magazines or catalogs to display product information or navigate to websites; next to exhibits to provide more detailed information about what a visitor is viewing; or think, "human billboards".
And, if Google image search is any indication, QR Code tattoos are pretty popular as well.
In an effort to promote the use of QR codes, Google has created their "Favorite Places" advertising campaign. Favorite Places puts QR codes in shop windows letting customer's navigate to their online listings.
Any smart phone with a camera and compatible reader application (i.e. Red Laser or Google Goggles) can perform what's known as hardlinking which is the act of navigating from the physical world of business cards and magazines to the digital world. For example, the code on the left will hardlink to the techlozenge website and the code on the right will hardlink to some sample contact information.
While the storage mechanisms, error correction, and encoding of QR Codes is beyond the scope of this post; detailed information and links to other resource materials about those topics can be found on the Wikipedia QR Code web page.
How Can I Create My Own QR Codes?
Creating my own QR Code was much easier than I initially thought it would be.
I found a number of QR Code generators on the web but I was most impressed by QR Code and 2D Code Generator at Kerem Erkan's website.
As shown in the selection listing below, this well-designed web application can create a variety of codes for many different purposes.
Simply choose the kind of QR Code you'd like to create from the drop-down listing, enter the necessary data (I normally left the default values as-is), and lastly click "Generate the Code" to create a downloadable image. It's that easy!
If you'd like to create a QR Code containing contact information select, "Create a vCard".
For a QR Code that navigates to a website choose, "Browse to a Website".
For one that navigates to a Twitter profile using an image overlay from the profile (like mine above) select, "Twitter Profile Image Overlay".
Once your code image is downloaded it can be further modified by an image editor like Photoshop (paid) or Gimp (free). For example, an operation I usually need to perform is reducing the image to a more manageable size. But be careful when reducing a QR Code because if its too small, the scan will fail.
For smart phone users, there's the excellent Red Laser application that can scan and create QR Codes. It allows you to create one for website navigation, one that shares your contact info, one that can also share info from a contact on your phone, and a block of free form text.
As a bonus, you can also create QR Codes using the web application on Red Laser's website.
What Smart Phones Offer QR Code Readers?
QR codes can be used free of any license and all major smart phone platforms such as Apple's iOS, Google's Android, and Windows Phone 7 support the capability to read and respond to QR Codes.
iPhone users can read QR Codes using any number of free and paid iOS applications such as Red Laser which is a free application that allows both the scanning and creation of QR Codes.
Android users can read QR Codes with the Google Goggles application.
Windows Phone 7.5 is able to scan QR Codes using the Bing search application.
Nokia and BlackBerry devices also support similar functionality.
The Dark Side: Are There Dangers Associated With QR Codes?
Yes, there are legitimate dangers associated with QR Codes. Always use the same level of caution with QR Codes that you do with any untrusted hyperlinks. This is particularly important if you receive a QR Code in an email, find one embedded on a website, printed in a magazine, or pasted onto a billboard. You wouldn't click on a hyperlink in a spam email or on an untrusted website and the same concept applies to QR Codes.
Just like URL-shorteners can be used to hide the target of a URL, QR Codes can also hide their real destinations (such as fake banks or phony PayPal sites) from a user.
A malicious code combined with a permissive reader can redirect you to websites where malware is injected into your smart phone. This provides the malware with a direct link to other functionality on your smart phone such as for installing applications or sending emails containing personal information stored on the device.
A good rule-of-thumb to follow is always use readers that let you confirm an action such as navigating to a website.
While malicious codes aren't widely prevalent yet, they do exist so only scan codes you trust!
I hope you found this post helpful. Please send any comments or suggestions to: