Making QR Codes smaller
I have always been a HUGE fan of QR codes, and there is so much potential in them. I still think they will become part of our daily lives in the future as it allows us to display loads of information in a small image, using our cellphones to display the info.
I have just finished updating my South African iPhone apps page, and discovered a neat little trick when creating QR codes. Using the Kaywya QR Code Generator, I found is, that when the URL you are pointing to is quite long, the image size gets bigger. So for instance, I want to link back to the apps page, which is https://www.marcforrest.com/south-african-iphone-apps-directory/;
If I use the full URL in a QR Code image, it turns out to be quite a big image size wise (214 x 214)
BUT, if I shorten the URL using Bit.ly, it makes the image size a whole lot smaller (135 x 135) , but with exactly the same info in it
Use it don’t use it ;)
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If you’d like even shorter URLs, you can use services like is.gd or ow.ly. Oh and BTW I have an own QR Code Generator that I find is easy to use. I hope you like it.
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Marc – Based on your interest in QR Codes you will want to join the LinkedIn Group CodeZ QR’s One-to-one QR Communications. I too think QR is going to be part of our everyday lives soon and I think the world of 1to1 QR holds some of the greatest possibilities.
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Actually you can make it even smaller if you use the upper case character trick.
However, Bit.ly is case sensitive, so you’ll need to use a custom name and use only uppercase characters. For example http://bit.ly/MFAPPS or when you encode it http://BIT.LY/MFAPPS
I went ahead and created this for you and built the barcode using google charts – http://chart.apis.google.com/chart?chs=150×150&cht=qr&chl=HTTP://BIT.LY/MFAPPS&choe=UTF-8
If you’ll notice, it’s a 21×21 matrix vs. your current 25×25, a roughly 30% savings.
The Kaywa generator seems to throw in extra error correction, which is probably unnecessary for your needs.
I wrote an article about this on my blog – http://squarepush.com/ps/2009/08/25/qr-code-size-and-uppercase-characters/
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So how you these QR Codes help?
Is there an iPhone app that understands them?
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