Using QR codes to advertise your NASA event or web site

You have probably been seeing QR (Quick Response) Codes in more and more places recently. These are two-dimensional bar codes that are designed as a bridge between print media and the Internet. Thus, someone with a smart phone could scan such a QR code rather than type in a web address. Free QR readers are available for smart phones, tablets, Macs, and Linux. (Windows offers few, if any good software choices, for some reason.) The QR Codes themselves most often contain URLs, but can contain vcards (digital business card info) or other text information. There are also web sites which will generate QR Codes for you for free.

So why mention all this here?

QR Codes can be a useful addition to flyers or posters you distribute advertising your events. Thus, a colloquium flyer or a conference poster could link to a web page with more information about the speaker or the event. One could even put them on scientific posters, offering a link to one's research page with details, data, images, graphs, PDFs, or any other "delve deeper" information you think would be useful as a complement to the session poster itself.

How to Create QR Codes

You can generate your own QR Code by entering in the desired information (URL or something else) and deciding on how big you want it to be.

• Go QR, which has a slider for image size and a download button.
• ZXing generator (see below for more about this site)

(Make sure to include a small amount of white space around it in your final document.)

How NOT to use QR codes

Don't include QR Codes as attachments to email messages—there's no purpose! When you think about them as conduits between print and electronic media, you can see that you don't need a QR Code in an already-electronic document: simply give the URL or other information directly.

How to read QR Codes (general comments)

The standard way to read them is with a camera-aware application: just point your smart phone or tablet at the code. Many apps will simply take you right to the target web site, while others may show you the converted code first. Most will then offer to take you to the target site.

For computers, you would hold the QR code up to your webcam and have the given application read the code.

Some applications can also read image files containing QR Codes, which can be a convenience. (Despite what I just said above about not including them in email, having the ability to read files can indeed be handy, including crosschecking codes you created and wish to redistribute on posters!)

How to read QR Codes (specific operating systems)

iOS

Qrafter is a free and well-done QR reader for iOS devices (iPhones, iPod Touches, and iPads).

A web page with different available QR readers for a huge list of specific model numbers of cell phones can be found at http://www.qrcodedesign4u.com/?page_id=157.

Android

QR Droid is a well-reviewed free QR reader for Android that works nicely in our testing.

OS X

QR Journal is free for OS X and works well.

Python

qrcode, installable via pip, is a QR code generator.

Linux

zbar is a free and open source QR tool for Linux.
These days it can be installed as a package (e.g., yum/RPM). You can try it out with zbarcam and zbarimg.

Windows

OnBarcode.com's free reader only allows you to load in and read a file and does not have a way to automatically load that into a browser.
Or you can try Desktop-QR-Scanner.zip from QR4. This one appears to be camera- and not file-upload-based.

web-based readers

One example is Zebra Crossing (ZXing) from Google Code.

You can try out a demo page http://zxing.org/w/decode.jspx.
It is rather ugly but it works, although the result comes up as plain text (not even as a link) in a plain browser window. (You have to upload a file containing an image or give it a URL with a QR code (why!?).)

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David Friedlander
18 April 2012 (original), 15 April 2020