November 17th, 2024

Creating a QR Code step by step

The article details a comprehensive guide on encoding text strings into QR Codes using JavaScript, covering user input options, data segment creation, error correction, mask pattern selection, and additional learning resources.

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Creating a QR Code step by step

The article provides a detailed step-by-step guide on how a text string is encoded into a QR Code using a JavaScript demo application. It begins with user input options for text strings, error correction levels, and version numbers. The process includes analyzing Unicode characters, creating data segments, fitting the data to a version number, concatenating segments, and adding error correction codes. The guide explains how to draw fixed patterns, apply mask patterns, and calculate penalty points to select the best mask for the QR Code. Each step is accompanied by technical details, such as the number of codewords and blocks, and the methods used for encoding and error correction. The article also references additional resources for further learning about QR Code design and functionality.

- The article outlines a comprehensive process for generating QR Codes from text strings.

- It includes user input options for customization, such as error correction levels and version numbers.

- The encoding process involves multiple steps, including data segment creation and error correction code application.

- The guide emphasizes the importance of selecting the best mask pattern based on penalty calculations.

- Additional resources are provided for readers interested in learning more about QR Code technology.

AI: What people are saying
The comments on the article about encoding text strings into QR Codes using JavaScript reflect a mix of feedback and additional resources related to QR codes.
  • Several users express interest in deeper technical aspects, such as error correction and encoding methods.
  • Commenters share their own implementations and resources, including links to videos and GitHub projects.
  • There is a desire for more comprehensive guides, including decoding QR codes.
  • Users appreciate the article as a helpful introduction to QR codes.
  • Some comments suggest improvements, like tagging the article with its publication year for clarity.
Link Icon 12 comments
By @Timwi - 5 months
Unfortunately it seems that every online explanation of QR codes always leaves out the Reed-Solomon error code calculation. The author here describes it as “long, tedious, and not very interesting”, but since everyone seems to think that, it is now very hard to find.
By @throw0101c - 5 months
Recent Veritasium video on the topic, "I used to hate QR codes. But they're actually genius":

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5ebcowAJD8

By @belter - 5 months
The feedback he receives is quite fun: https://www.nayuki.io/page/poor-feedback-from-readers
By @bb88 - 5 months
This is pretty awesome. I would like to see the same thing for the decoder.
By @greggman24 - 5 months
it's nice to have an explanation. for me, I just wanted to quickly make them. Googling led to ad covered sites and "register to use" site. Found a few on GitHub but they had other issues so threw together my own using a well designed library I'd used before. took about 15 minutes

https://greggman.github.io/qr-code/

might add more options but in truth I don't think most users need the options

By @aabiji - 5 months
I built an implementation in Rust a while back:

https://github.com/aabiji/qr

By @redbell - 5 months
A good practice is to tag the title with the year of the article (in this case, 2018), when it is not from the current year.
By @jaza - 5 months
Nice! Learning how QR codes work has been on my todo list for ages, this was a nice introduction.
By @fforflo - 5 months
Plug: Now that you know how they work, you can use them in your SQL queries too https://github.com/Florents-Tselai/pgQR
By @slig - 5 months
This resource is awesome. I wanted to have the smallest readable QR code for my printables pages footer [1], and I discovered there that it's possible to encode URLs in "Alphanumeric mode", version 1, using only uppercase characters, e.g., HTTPS://FOO.CC/ABCDEFGHIJ, so I got a three letter domain name and built the simplest URL shortener hosted on a CF worker.

[1]: https://pdf.ahaprintables.com/pdf/preview/aha/zebra-puzzles-... (PDF)