Upload the picture, print the square, skip the long address
Somebody needs to see a photo of the part, the diagram or the plan, and reading a long web address out loud is a poor way to get it to them. Upload the picture here and you get a code that opens it full screen on their phone. It works on a printed label as well as on a screen.
Tip: Ctrl+C or “Right click\Copy”
Displaying the logo on the QR code may take some time. Just wait for it to load.
When some colors are combined on the QR code, it may not work correctly. Don’t
forget to check before posting!
The camera reads the square, shows a web address and waits for a tap. Tapping opens the browser, which loads the picture at its full size, so the reader can pinch and zoom into the corner of a diagram or turn the phone sideways for a wide shot. iPhones have done this from the Camera app since iOS 11, Android since version 9, with Google Lens covering older handsets. No application is needed at either end.
Uploads accept JPG, PNG, WebP, GIF and SVG up to 10 MB. The file is renamed and saved on free-qr.com, and that address is what goes into the code. Because a link is short, the resulting code is sparse, with large modules that hold up when printed small or on rough stock.
Leave the quiet zone alone. Four modules of blank margin on all four sides, and a code cropped flush to its black edge is dead however pretty the layout looks. Size next: divide the reading distance by ten. A sticker read at arm's length can be two to three centimetres a side, a code on a wall read from two metres wants about twenty. Under two centimetres nothing dependable happens.
Print dark on light. Inverted codes scan happily on a new phone and fail on the fixed scanners in warehouses and libraries. A logo in the middle costs you modules, so raise error correction to Q or H, and Q is already selected when the page loads. For print take SVG or EPS rather than PNG, since a raster code scaled up by a printer gets soft edges and soft edges are what a reader struggles with. There is a short comparison of the three formats if you are unsure which to send.
Two things a code made here will not do. It will not count scans, because static codes have no counter and never report back. And it cannot be pointed somewhere else after printing.
This matters more than the technical details, so it is worth being blunt. A photograph cannot be encoded into a QR code. There is room for roughly 4296 characters in the largest version, and even a heavily compressed phone snap is several hundred kilobytes, which is thousands of times too much. Every tool that claims to convert image to QR code is doing what this one does: storing the file somewhere and encoding a link to it.
So the file sits at a public address on free-qr.com. The name is generated and hard to guess, but the address is not secret and it is not protected by a password, because the site has no password protection to offer. Anyone holding the link can open the image, and a link travels: it is in the browser history of every phone that scanned the printed code, and it can be forwarded in one tap.
That is a fair deal for a product photo, a wiring diagram bolted to a machine, a seating plan or a picture of the right spare part. It is the wrong deal for family photographs, a scan of a passport, anything with a face and a name beside it, or a document a colleague sent you in confidence. If a picture would bother you on a public web page, it will bother you here for the same reason. For anything that must be revoked later, keep the file on a service you control and point an editable code at it, so you can move the destination when you need to.
No. A QR code holds about 4296 characters at most, which is nowhere near enough for a photo. What is encoded is a link to the copy stored on free-qr.com. Every tool that offers this works the same way, whatever the wording on the page suggests.
JPG, PNG, WebP, GIF and SVG, up to 10 MB each. The real type of the file is checked, not just the extension, so renaming something to .png will not get it through. Compress large camera originals before uploading them.
The file name is generated and unguessable, but the address is public and there is no password protection on this site. Anyone who scans the code, or who is sent the link afterwards, can open the image. Use it for pictures you would be comfortable publishing.
One upload gives one code. If you want a set, put the images on a page of your own and encode that page address with the plain URL option instead. That also lets you add captions, which a bare image file cannot carry.
Not for a code you have already printed. A new upload produces a new address and therefore a new code. If the picture is likely to change, use an editable code from the dynamic URL page and repoint it whenever you need to.
The code has no expiry date, no scan limit and no watermark, and codes made here are free. What it depends on is the file staying in place at the address it was given. The square itself will still be readable in ten years.
