QR Code Generator

How to create a QR code

Pick the content type, fill in the fields, and the preview updates as you type. Adjust the colours, the finder and module styling, the error-correction level and the quiet zone until the code looks the way you want it, then export it as PNG or SVG.

Nothing is submitted and there is no generate button to press: the encoder runs in this page as you edit, so what the preview shows is what the exported file contains.

Supported QR code types

Eight payload types are supported: a website URL, plain text, WiFi network credentials, contact details as a vCard, a pre-addressed email, a phone number, an SMS with an optional message, and a WhatsApp number with an optional pre-filled message.

Each type is encoded in the format scanning apps expect — a WiFi code uses the WIFI: scheme, a contact uses vCard 3.0, an email uses a mailto: link — so a camera app can act on the result instead of showing raw text.

Static QR codes and expiry

Every code this tool produces is static: the payload is encoded directly in the QR modules, so scanning it does not pass through AutoFlow Robotics. Because the payload is encoded directly in the QR code, AutoFlow Robotics is not in the scan path after the code is generated.

That means no AutoFlow Robotics subscription, account or redirect service can expire and take the code with it. It does not mean the destination lasts forever: if you encode a URL, the code keeps working exactly as long as whoever runs that address keeps it reachable. Encode an address you control, and keep it working.

The trade-off of a static code is that the destination is fixed. Changing where a printed code points means generating and reprinting a new one.

Adding a logo and customising the design

You can set the foreground and background colours, choose a module and finder style, and place a PNG, JPEG or WebP logo in the centre. The logo is read and resized in your browser; it is not uploaded.

Styling is applied to the payload modules only. The finder patterns, timing pattern and alignment patterns stay structurally square, because those are the shapes a scanner uses to locate and orient the code before it reads anything.

A logo covers modules, which is why adding one switches error correction to H automatically. Remove the logo and the previous level is restored, unless you changed it deliberately in the meantime.

Error correction

Error correction adds redundancy so a partly damaged or obscured code can still be read. The four levels recover roughly 7% (L), 15% (M), 25% (Q) and 30% (H) of the code.

Higher levels are more forgiving of print wear, poor lighting and a centred logo, but they add modules, which makes the code denser. For a printed code with a logo, H is the right starting point; for a short URL on screen, M is usually enough.

Quiet zone

The quiet zone is the empty margin around the code. Scanners use it to tell where the code ends, and a code pressed hard against artwork, a border or a photograph often fails to read at all.

Four modules is the usual recommendation, and it is the default here. The quiet-zone control lets you reduce it if your layout demands it, and the reliability panel tells you when you have gone too far.

PNG or SVG

SVG keeps the QR modules as vector geometry, so the code stays crisp at any size — the right choice for print, for a sign, or for anything that may be scaled later. An uploaded logo is embedded at its own resolution and stays a raster image inside the SVG.

PNG is a fixed-resolution image at the pixel size you select. It is the simpler choice for screens, slides, email and anywhere an SVG is awkward to place.

QR code size for print

A common rule of thumb is that the printed code should be about a tenth of the intended scanning distance: roughly 2 cm for a code read at 20 cm on a business card, and proportionally larger for a poster read from across a room.

The preview reports the physical size the selected pixel dimension corresponds to at 300 DPI, which is the usual print resolution. Denser codes — longer content, higher error correction — need more physical size for the same reliability, because what actually matters is how large each individual module ends up.

Browser-local QR-content processing

The QR content you type and any logo you add are processed locally in your browser. The encoder, the renderer and the export step all run in this page, and the tool sends no QR payload and no logo image anywhere.

This page is an ordinary page on the AutoFlow Robotics website and carries the same privacy-friendly site analytics as the rest of it, which records page views. That measurement never sees what you encode: your QR content and your logo are not part of it.

Scan reliability

The reliability panel inspects the code you have actually built: the contrast between your two colours, whether the foreground is darker than the background, the width of the quiet zone, the density of the encoded content, and — when a logo is present — how many modules its backdrop covers and whether it reaches the reserved function patterns.

It is guidance, not a certification. It describes the properties that make codes fail in practice; it cannot promise that a particular camera, in particular lighting, on a particular material, will read a particular code.

Test before a print run

Export the final file and scan it from the medium it will actually be used on — the printed proof, the screen, the material — with more than one phone, including an older one, and in the lighting the code will really be read in.

Test after the file has been through your production path, not before. Resizing, compression, a colour profile change or a low-quality print can all degrade a code that scanned perfectly on your desk.