What is inside a vCard QR code
The code does not link to a web page. It stores the contact record itself as plain text in the vCard 3.0 format (RFC 2426), and the phone's scanner hands that text to the address book. Because everything is in the code, it keeps working with no internet connection and no redirect service, but it also cannot be edited after you print it.
The generator builds the record from your fields in a fixed order: N (family name; given name), FN (display name), then ORG, TITLE, TEL, EMAIL and URL for whichever boxes you filled in. The phone number is always tagged TYPE=CELL. The code is drawn at error correction level M, which tolerates roughly 15 percent damage.
Worked example
Entering Ada Lovelace with a phone number and an email address produces this 126-character payload (lines are separated by CRLF, as the RFC specifies):
BEGIN:VCARD
VERSION:3.0
N:Lovelace;Ada;;;
FN:Ada Lovelace
TEL;TYPE=CELL:+44 20 7946 0000
EMAIL:[email protected]
END:VCARDThat fits in a version 7 QR code, a grid of 45 by 45 modules. Adding a company, a job title and a website grows the payload to 210 characters and pushes the code to version 10, which is 57 by 57 modules.
| Fields filled | Payload | QR version (level M) | Grid |
|---|---|---|---|
| Name, phone, email | 126 characters | 7 | 45 x 45 |
| Plus company, title, website | 210 characters | 10 | 57 x 57 |
Limits and pitfalls
- More fields mean a denser code. Each extra field adds modules, and smaller modules are harder to scan from a business card. Leave out the job title and website if the card is tiny.
- You need at least one field. The code appears as soon as any of first name, last name, phone, email, company or website is filled in. With no personal name, the company (or failing that the website) is used as the display name, so a company-only card works.
- Special characters are escaped for you. Commas, semicolons, backslashes and line breaks inside a value are backslash-escaped as the vCard spec requires, so a company such as "Smith; Jones, Inc" stays in the ORG field as
Smith; Jones, Incinstead of being split. The website field is a URI, not text, so it is written as typed (commas and semicolons in a link are not escaped). Leading and trailing spaces are trimmed. Test your own code on an iPhone and an Android phone before printing a batch. - One phone, one type. There is no field for a second number, a home address or a photo.
- Print size. Keep the printed code roughly 2 cm square or larger, with the white margin left intact.
For a link to a website, Wi-Fi network or any other text, use the general QR code generator or the Wi-Fi QR code generator.