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florencew60574261
florencew60574261
Participant
January 24, 2023
Question

Adding fields to Business Card QR code generator

  • January 24, 2023
  • 3 replies
  • 891 views

Hi, I am using the QR code generator in InDesign, to create V-Card QR codes. I have 4 telephone numbers that need to show on the V-Card and there are only 2 telephone number fields in the generator form.
Is there a way that I can edit the generator form or add those 2 telephone numbers?
Thank you in advance for your help.
Flo

This topic has been closed for replies.

3 replies

J
Community Expert
Jeffrey_SmithCommunity Expert
Community Expert
January 24, 2023

When generating QR code, use Plain Text type and paste in vcard code:

 

BEGIN:VCARD

VERSION:2.1
N:Smith;Jeff
FN:Smith
TEL;CELL: 1234567890
TEL;CELL: 2345678901
TEL;CELL: 3456789012
TEL;WORK;VOICE: 4567890123
END:VCARD

florencew60574261
florencew60574261Author
Participant
January 24, 2023

Jeffrey, O my goodness, thank you so much. I didn't realize that would be such an easy task. I was able to add 4 phone numbers and all the other information and still have a code that was readable. Thank you so much.

Brad @ Roaring Mouse
Community Expert
Brad @ Roaring MouseCommunity Expert
Community Expert
January 24, 2023

To expand on James' suggestion, you might want to steer clear of ID's Business Card template anyway as it writes older v2.1 vCards which are reportedly troublesome for some smart phones these days. Yes, you could read up on how to format v3.0 vCard info (including as many phone numbers as you want) and manually pasting it into the "Plain Text" box in ID's QR code generator as opposed to using the Template, but why bother when you can get better results via much a more sophisticated external plugin you can buy for lo-cost (e.g. at Adobe Exchange) or even a free online generator.

    florencew60574261
    florencew60574261Author
    Participant
    January 24, 2023

    James and Brad, thank you so much for your information
    Brad, unfortunately the Adobe Exchange plugin will not download for me. I tried all their suggestions, but it won't. I'm leary of online generators as I am doing this for a client for about 10 or 15 of his employees. If someone can suggest a safe, reliable service I'll be happy to look into it (I spent a couple hours yesterday researching).

    James Gifford—NitroPress
    James Gifford—NitroPress
    Legend
    January 24, 2023

    I have learned over the last several months that the simple QR code has been co-opted by an entire industry of *cough* entrepreneurs who have found ways to link generated codes to pay-me or data-scraping systems. We've had a number of new posters who want to create "dynamic QR codes" using ID that do this, that and some other fancy online thing. Confusion has reigned.

     

    I understand why you'd be leery of using any online service or app for this, even for simple data safety reasons.

     

    I am not sure if there is a completely standalone generator app; you might look on the mobile platforms as well as for desktop OSes.

     

    And... maybe my suggestion about hand-coding the info using ID's tool is the right direction, if you're up to learning a little vCard structure. 🙂 I've certainly made a note to look into it, for all of the above reasons.

     

    James Gifford—NitroPress
    James Gifford—NitroPress
    Legend
    January 24, 2023

    ID's QR code feature is very basic and a little out of date. You are probably better off using any of the many code generator apps or sites out there; you may have to work out a full-text encoding to hold all the extra information in vCard format. (If you put the right text in the "text" mode, it will map to vCard specs... but it's a little tricky. Wikipedia actually has a pretty good reference to the field codes etc.)

     

    But no, ID's generator is not adaptable in any way I know of.

     

    Just as a heads-up, though, you usually want to limit the number of characters encoded in a QR code. It will hold a lot — I forget what the limit is — but once you go past a certain limit, the code grid gets very fine and if the code isn't reproduced fairly large, many readers will have trouble with it. So if you're including much besides four phone numbers, you might want to watch the details.

     

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