Minifigure showing frustration while putting together a QR Code puzzle

Share a Website Address Using a QR Code

Adam Douglas

Published Aug 6, 2022
Revised Jan 10, 2023

No matter what we seem to share there can be issues either in communication or what was shared is recorded with errors. Sharing a website address is no different, however these issues can be resolved by creating a QR Code (quick response code). Think of the QR Code as specialized bar code one sees in a grocery store, only difference here is the bar code when scanned will send the user to a website.

The following steps were done using a Linux terminal that generates a QR Code to share my website address. A graphical interface maybe used on Linux called QtQR (Arch Linux package).

Environment

The following was used to test these instructions.

Arch Linux x86_64
Pacman v6.0.1
qrencode v4.1.1
ZBar v0.23.1

Install Packages

Arch Linux

# pacman -Syu qrencode zbar

Debian

# apt install qrencode zbar-tools

Generate QR Code Terminal Output

$ qrencode -s 6 -l H -o - -t utf8 "https://www.adamsdesk.com/"

-s    Specify the size of the dot (pixel). (default=3)
-l    Specify error correction level from L (lowest) to H (highest). (default=L)
-o    Write image to FILENAME. If '-' is specified, the result will be output to standard output.
-t    Specify the type of the generated image. (default=PNG)

QR Code to share website address for Adamsdesk outputted to the terminal in UTF-8 — An Example of a QR Code Sharing a Website Address (terminal output UTF-8)

Generate QR Code Output To File

$ qrencode -s 6 -l H -o "website-qrcode.png" "https://www.adamsdesk.com/"

-s    Specify the size of the dot (pixel). (default=3)
-l    Specify error correction level from L (lowest) to H (highest). (default=L)
-o    Write image to FILENAME. If '-' is specified, the result will be output to standard output.

QR Code to share website address for Adamsdesk — An Example of a QR Code Sharing a Website Address

Verify QR Code

By checking the contents of a QR Code one can verify that the QR Code has been generated as desired.

$ zbarimg website-qrcode.png

QR-Code:https://www.adamsdesk.com/
scanned 1 barcode symbols from 1 images in 0.03 seconds

	. EAN/UPC (EAN-13, EAN-8, EAN-2, EAN-5, UPC-A, UPC-E, ISBN-10, ISBN-13)
	. DataBar, DataBar Expanded
	. Code 128
	. Code 93
	. Code 39
	. Codabar
	. Interleaved 2 of 5
	. QR code
	. SQ code
  - is the barcode large enough in the image?
  - is the barcode mostly in focus?
  - is there sufficient contrast/illumination?
  - If the symbol is split in several barcodes, are they combined in one image?
  - Did you enable the barcode type?
    some EAN/UPC codes are disabled by default. To enable all, use:
    $ zbarimg -S*.enable <files>
    Please also notice that some variants take precedence over others.
    Due to that, if you want, for example, ISBN-10, you should do:
    $ zbarimg -Sisbn10.enable <files>

This is post 27 of 100, and is round 2 of the 100 Days To Offload challenge.