Printing a QR code that scans
Two centimetres, a white border, one test print.
What to check before sending a file to the printer, so you don’t discover the problem on a run of five hundred copies.
01 / Printing a QR code that scans
Size is decided before, not after.
Two centimetres a side at minimum on anything held in the hand
A QR code reads or doesn’t read depending on one thing: the size of its little squares once printed. A typical phone needs four tenths of a millimetre per square at the very least, and only works comfortably from half a millimetre up. Below the minimum, you need perfect conditions: good light, a recent device, a steady hand, crisp ink. On a card or a flyer, two centimetres a side puts you well above half a millimetre. That’s your floor, not your target.
On a shop window or a vehicle, go bigger: people scan from further away
Those two centimetres are for the code alone, the white border comes on top
02 / Printing a QR code that scans
The white border isn’t a margin, it’s part of the code.
Keep the whole white border, without cropping
The white frame around the QR code is what lets the phone know where the code begins. A designer who trims it to save space, or who places the code on a photo, breaks the code without anything showing on screen. Same thing for distortion: a QR code scales up as a square, never as a rectangle.
A plain, light background under the code, never a photo
Scale it up keeping the square, without stretching
03 / Printing a QR code that scans
Send the vector, not the image.
The vector file for anything going to print
Download the vector file: it’s an outline, not an enlarged image, and it prints just as sharp on a three-centimetre sticker as on a three-metre banner. The image is fine for a screen, an email or a document, but it blurs as soon as you enlarge it. Your printer, though, wants the vector.
The image for a screen, an email, a document
A dark code on a light background: it’s the contrast that reads, not the colour
04 / Printing a QR code that scans
One test print, then the run.
One copy, at the size and on the paper of the run
This is the check that costs dearly when forgotten. Have ONE copy printed, at its final size and on the final paper, and scan it with two different phones in the light it will live in. Check the page that opens, not just that it beeps. Only then, launch the five hundred.
Two different phones, in the real light
Check the page that opens, not just the trigger
05 / Printing a QR code that scans
Say where it leads, and keep control of it.
A sentence next to the code, saying what opens
Nobody points a camera at a black square out of curiosity. Write next to it what it opens: the menu, your work, your contact details. And if the destination changes one day, your QR code doesn’t: you redirect it to another page from your account, without reprinting a single sheet.
A different code per medium, to know which one is really working
A destination you can change after printing, without a new run
Before you sign up
Your questions, simply.
How long is it free for?
What it costs
No end date. Not fourteen days, not three months: €0, and no bank card is ever asked of you, not at sign-up and not later. The other side of the deal is visible to the naked eye: the Bizleen brand stays displayed on your card, on its QR code and on the email signature it builds for you. Paying makes it go away, and that is all it changes.
Does my customer have to install an app?
How it works
Nothing to install, for them or for you. They point at the QR code with the camera already in their phone, your card opens on their side, they tap Add to contacts if they want to. The QR code opens your card, it does not save anything on its own: that is their move. iPhone and Android alike, with no account to create.
How long before my card exists?
How it works
The time it takes to type your name and choose your address. You add your photo, your number and your links whenever you want: nothing is blocked until everything is filled in. What takes time is not the card, it is the content that comes afterwards: detailing thirty or so services with their durations and prices takes an evening, sometimes three.
The first step is simple
A business to share.
A card to start with.
Publishing remains an explicit decision, after you confirm your email address.