Online QR Code Generator — every code you will ever need, free.

A QR code is not a link to a file somewhere — it is the data. The black and white pattern is your text, address or Wi-Fi password written in a form a camera can read. That single fact explains almost everything else on this page: why the codes here never expire, why they work without an account, and why nothing you type has to leave your browser.

Every code on this site is generated locally, in the page you are looking at. The content you enter is turned into a pattern by JavaScript running on your own device and drawn straight to the screen. No server sees your Wi-Fi password, your contact details or your wallet address, because none of it is ever sent anywhere.

Static codes, and what “dynamic” really means

The codes here are static: the destination is baked into the pattern. Print it once and it keeps working for as long as whatever it points to exists. There is no subscription that can lapse and no redirect service that can shut down and take your printed material with it.

A dynamic code is a different thing wearing the same clothes. It encodes a short link to a tracking service, which forwards visitors to the real destination. That indirection is what lets you edit the target later and count scans — and also what creates the monthly fee, the privacy question, and the risk that your codes stop working when the account does. If you want editable destinations without that dependency, point a static code at a page on your own domain and change the redirect there: you keep control and the code stays free.

Static and dynamic codes compared in full

What you can put in a code

Most codes are web addresses, but the format carries far more. A Wi-Fi code holds a network name, security type and password, so guests join by scanning instead of reading a password off a wall. A vCard code carries a whole contact record into the phone’s address book. Calendar events, SMS drafts, email addresses, map coordinates and payment requests all have their own standard encodings, and 30 of them have a dedicated generator here.

Keep the content short. Every extra character adds modules to the pattern, and a dense code needs to be printed larger to stay readable. A 30-character link and a 300-character one produce very different codes from the same generator.

Choosing a file format

Download SVG whenever a designer or printer is involved: it is vector, so it stays sharp from a business card to a billboard and can be recoloured without re-rendering. PNG is right for screens, documents and office printers — pick a size larger than you think you need, because enlarging a PNG later softens the edges scanners depend on. PDF gives you the code on a page at a known physical size, which is what most copy shops want to receive. Avoid JPG: its compression blurs exactly the sharp edges a reader is looking for.

Making a code that actually scans

Three things cause most failures. Contrast: dark pattern on a light background, never the reverse, and never a busy photo behind it. Quiet zone: the empty margin around the pattern is part of the code, so cropping it makes readers lose the edge. Size: as a rule of thumb, the printed code should be about a tenth of the distance it will be scanned from, so a poster read from two metres needs roughly 20 cm.

Adding a logo works because QR codes carry error correction — spare data that lets a reader reconstruct a damaged pattern. A centre logo spends part of that budget, so raise the correction level when you add one, and always test the printed result with more than one phone before ordering a thousand copies.