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Is it possible to create a QR code using text?

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106

28

QR codes I have seen are mostly image files. But can you create QR codes using plain text?

For example ASCII and UTF-8 have black boxes as characters. Can I use those together with spaces to create a QR code?

utf-8 ascii qr-code

share|improve this question

edited Apr 1 at 14:59

JakeGould

32.7k10100142

asked Apr 1 at 14:32

Murat KaçiranMurat Kaçiran

7001410

New contributor

Murat Kaçiran is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.

• 
  
  
  

  
  7
  

  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  
  Is there a specific project this is for? I'm just curious
  
  – Ben Leggiero
  Apr 2 at 3:35
  

  
  
  
  


• 
  
  
  

  
  5
  

  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  
  @BenLeggiero Thank you for your question. I don't have a certain project but I thought it would be handy to know the existence of such QR codes. For example, you can put those in a bio on a forum if the forum doesn't support profile pictures, and many more advantages.
  
  – Murat Kaçiran
  Apr 2 at 10:19
  

  
  
  
  


• 
  
  
  

  
  

  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  
  At a small enough font size, you don't even need the black boxes!
  
  – Paul D. Waite
  Apr 3 at 16:27
  

  
  
  
  

add a comment | 

106

28

QR codes I have seen are mostly image files. But can you create QR codes using plain text?

For example ASCII and UTF-8 have black boxes as characters. Can I use those together with spaces to create a QR code?

utf-8 ascii qr-code

share|improve this question

edited Apr 1 at 14:59

JakeGould

32.7k10100142

asked Apr 1 at 14:32

Murat KaçiranMurat Kaçiran

7001410

New contributor

Murat Kaçiran is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.

• 
  
  
  

  
  7
  

  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  
  Is there a specific project this is for? I'm just curious
  
  – Ben Leggiero
  Apr 2 at 3:35
  

  
  
  
  


• 
  
  
  

  
  5
  

  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  
  @BenLeggiero Thank you for your question. I don't have a certain project but I thought it would be handy to know the existence of such QR codes. For example, you can put those in a bio on a forum if the forum doesn't support profile pictures, and many more advantages.
  
  – Murat Kaçiran
  Apr 2 at 10:19
  

  
  
  
  


• 
  
  
  

  
  

  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  
  At a small enough font size, you don't even need the black boxes!
  
  – Paul D. Waite
  Apr 3 at 16:27
  

  
  
  
  

add a comment | 

QR codes I have seen are mostly image files. But can you create QR codes using plain text?

For example ASCII and UTF-8 have black boxes as characters. Can I use those together with spaces to create a QR code?

utf-8 ascii qr-code

share|improve this question

edited Apr 1 at 14:59

JakeGould

32.7k10100142

asked Apr 1 at 14:32

Murat KaçiranMurat Kaçiran

7001410

New contributor

Murat Kaçiran is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.

share|improve this question

edited Apr 1 at 14:59

JakeGould

32.7k10100142

asked Apr 1 at 14:32

Murat KaçiranMurat Kaçiran

7001410

New contributor

Murat Kaçiran is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.

share|improve this question

edited Apr 1 at 14:59

JakeGould

32.7k10100142

asked Apr 1 at 14:32

Murat KaçiranMurat Kaçiran

7001410

New contributor

Murat Kaçiran is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.

edited Apr 1 at 14:59

JakeGould

32.7k10100142

edited Apr 1 at 14:59

JakeGould

32.7k10100142

asked Apr 1 at 14:32

Murat KaçiranMurat Kaçiran

7001410

New contributor

Murat Kaçiran is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.

asked Apr 1 at 14:32

Murat KaçiranMurat Kaçiran

7001410

1 Answer
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163

Yes! There is a utility called qrencode that can render these for you.

The only really important factor for a QR code is that the 2D array has "darker" and "ligher" pixels / segments. It can be colored too, though contrast can start to be an issue.

ASCII

Your ability to read this QR code will likely depend on the camera's resolution, distance, and the software you're using.

qrencode -t ASCIIi 'https://superuser.com/questions/1420001/is-it-possible-to-write-a-qr-code'

Note: I used -t ASCIIi (Inverted ASCII) because my terminal is White-on-Black.

ANSI

This mode works by setting the background color to black or white, and printing a number of space characters.

qrencode -t ANSI 'https://superuser.com/questions/1420001/is-it-possible-to-write-a-qr-code'

Some of the raw characters written to the terminal are shown below, these are ANSI escape codes. An "escape" character has a value of 0x1b and can often be written as e.

• 
  e[40m sets the background color to black


• 
  e[47m sets the background color to white


• 
  0x20 is an ASCII space

UTF-8

There is also a UTF-8 mode (-t UTF8). This mode uses the "half block" characters to increase the density, and cut the line count by half.

• ▀ - U+2580 / Upper Half Block


• ▄ - U+2584 / Lower Half Block


• █ - U+2588 / Full Block

Screenshot from @grawity (thanks)

qrencode -t UTF8 'https://superuser.com/questions/1420001/is-it-possible-to-write-a-qr-code'

qrencode -t ANSIUTF8 'https://superuser.com/questions/1420001/is-it-possible-to-write-a-qr-code'

share|improve this answer

edited Apr 2 at 10:42

answered Apr 1 at 14:54

AttieAttie

13k43548

• 
  
  
  

  
  3
  

  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  
  Don't forget -t UTF-8 mode, which uses the "box drawings" characters that OP mentions?
  
  – grawity
  Apr 1 at 15:00
  

  
  
  
  


• 
  
  
  

  
  9
  

  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  
  i.imgur.com/WQYkxYm.png i.imgur.com/KeDVJ16.png – this uses "half block" characters ▄ ▀ █, with optional colors to increase contrast only. (They're from Unicode 1.1 and date all the way to IBM DOS; surprised there's still any terminal that cannot render those...)
  
  – grawity
  Apr 1 at 15:04
  
  
  

  
  
  
  


• 
  
  
  

  
  7
  

  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  
  @MuratKaçiran: Powershell and CMD are just command interpreters (shells), they both use the same "Windows Console" as the terminal. It too has received significant improvements in Win10.18xx. In the past, it did not support UTF-8 at all. It could do Unicode via UTF-16 with suitably written programs, but those programs had to deliberately use the special Unicode mode. If the program didn't do that, all you get is the MS-DOS era cp437 codepages... In that situation, qrencode -t UTF8 | iconv -f utf8 -t cp437 may still work, as the same box drawings also existed back then.
  
  – grawity
  Apr 2 at 11:46
  
  
  

  
  
  
  


• 
  
  
  

  
  6
  

  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  
  To my surprise, the QR reader app on my iphone successfully read all these off my screen, including the ASCII # one. +1.
  
  – Digital Trauma
  Apr 3 at 17:10
  

  
  
  
  


• 
  
  
  

  
  3
  

  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  
  @Attie: Oh, I probably had accidentally selected some text so it shows part of the line in reverse-text.
  
  – grawity
  Apr 4 at 10:30
  

  
  
  
  

 | 
show 8 more comments

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163

Yes! There is a utility called qrencode that can render these for you.

The only really important factor for a QR code is that the 2D array has "darker" and "ligher" pixels / segments. It can be colored too, though contrast can start to be an issue.

ASCII

Your ability to read this QR code will likely depend on the camera's resolution, distance, and the software you're using.

qrencode -t ASCIIi 'https://superuser.com/questions/1420001/is-it-possible-to-write-a-qr-code'

Note: I used -t ASCIIi (Inverted ASCII) because my terminal is White-on-Black.

ANSI

This mode works by setting the background color to black or white, and printing a number of space characters.

qrencode -t ANSI 'https://superuser.com/questions/1420001/is-it-possible-to-write-a-qr-code'

Some of the raw characters written to the terminal are shown below, these are ANSI escape codes. An "escape" character has a value of 0x1b and can often be written as e.

• 
  e[40m sets the background color to black


• 
  e[47m sets the background color to white


• 
  0x20 is an ASCII space

UTF-8

There is also a UTF-8 mode (-t UTF8). This mode uses the "half block" characters to increase the density, and cut the line count by half.

• ▀ - U+2580 / Upper Half Block


• ▄ - U+2584 / Lower Half Block


• █ - U+2588 / Full Block

Screenshot from @grawity (thanks)

qrencode -t UTF8 'https://superuser.com/questions/1420001/is-it-possible-to-write-a-qr-code'

qrencode -t ANSIUTF8 'https://superuser.com/questions/1420001/is-it-possible-to-write-a-qr-code'

share|improve this answer

edited Apr 2 at 10:42

answered Apr 1 at 14:54

AttieAttie

13k43548

• 
  
  
  

  
  3
  

  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  
  Don't forget -t UTF-8 mode, which uses the "box drawings" characters that OP mentions?
  
  – grawity
  Apr 1 at 15:00
  

  
  
  
  


• 
  
  
  

  
  9
  

  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  
  i.imgur.com/WQYkxYm.png i.imgur.com/KeDVJ16.png – this uses "half block" characters ▄ ▀ █, with optional colors to increase contrast only. (They're from Unicode 1.1 and date all the way to IBM DOS; surprised there's still any terminal that cannot render those...)
  
  – grawity
  Apr 1 at 15:04
  
  
  

  
  
  
  


• 
  
  
  

  
  7
  

  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  
  @MuratKaçiran: Powershell and CMD are just command interpreters (shells), they both use the same "Windows Console" as the terminal. It too has received significant improvements in Win10.18xx. In the past, it did not support UTF-8 at all. It could do Unicode via UTF-16 with suitably written programs, but those programs had to deliberately use the special Unicode mode. If the program didn't do that, all you get is the MS-DOS era cp437 codepages... In that situation, qrencode -t UTF8 | iconv -f utf8 -t cp437 may still work, as the same box drawings also existed back then.
  
  – grawity
  Apr 2 at 11:46
  
  
  

  
  
  
  


• 
  
  
  

  
  6
  

  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  
  To my surprise, the QR reader app on my iphone successfully read all these off my screen, including the ASCII # one. +1.
  
  – Digital Trauma
  Apr 3 at 17:10
  

  
  
  
  


• 
  
  
  

  
  3
  

  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  
  @Attie: Oh, I probably had accidentally selected some text so it shows part of the line in reverse-text.
  
  – grawity
  Apr 4 at 10:30
  

  
  
  
  

 | 
show 8 more comments

163

Yes! There is a utility called qrencode that can render these for you.

The only really important factor for a QR code is that the 2D array has "darker" and "ligher" pixels / segments. It can be colored too, though contrast can start to be an issue.

ASCII

Your ability to read this QR code will likely depend on the camera's resolution, distance, and the software you're using.

qrencode -t ASCIIi 'https://superuser.com/questions/1420001/is-it-possible-to-write-a-qr-code'

Note: I used -t ASCIIi (Inverted ASCII) because my terminal is White-on-Black.

ANSI

This mode works by setting the background color to black or white, and printing a number of space characters.

qrencode -t ANSI 'https://superuser.com/questions/1420001/is-it-possible-to-write-a-qr-code'

Some of the raw characters written to the terminal are shown below, these are ANSI escape codes. An "escape" character has a value of 0x1b and can often be written as e.

• 
  e[40m sets the background color to black


• 
  e[47m sets the background color to white


• 
  0x20 is an ASCII space

UTF-8

There is also a UTF-8 mode (-t UTF8). This mode uses the "half block" characters to increase the density, and cut the line count by half.

• ▀ - U+2580 / Upper Half Block


• ▄ - U+2584 / Lower Half Block


• █ - U+2588 / Full Block

Screenshot from @grawity (thanks)

qrencode -t UTF8 'https://superuser.com/questions/1420001/is-it-possible-to-write-a-qr-code'

qrencode -t ANSIUTF8 'https://superuser.com/questions/1420001/is-it-possible-to-write-a-qr-code'

share|improve this answer

edited Apr 2 at 10:42

answered Apr 1 at 14:54

AttieAttie

13k43548

• 
  
  
  

  
  3
  

  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  
  Don't forget -t UTF-8 mode, which uses the "box drawings" characters that OP mentions?
  
  – grawity
  Apr 1 at 15:00
  

  
  
  
  


• 
  
  
  

  
  9
  

  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  
  i.imgur.com/WQYkxYm.png i.imgur.com/KeDVJ16.png – this uses "half block" characters ▄ ▀ █, with optional colors to increase contrast only. (They're from Unicode 1.1 and date all the way to IBM DOS; surprised there's still any terminal that cannot render those...)
  
  – grawity
  Apr 1 at 15:04
  
  
  

  
  
  
  


• 
  
  
  

  
  7
  

  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  
  @MuratKaçiran: Powershell and CMD are just command interpreters (shells), they both use the same "Windows Console" as the terminal. It too has received significant improvements in Win10.18xx. In the past, it did not support UTF-8 at all. It could do Unicode via UTF-16 with suitably written programs, but those programs had to deliberately use the special Unicode mode. If the program didn't do that, all you get is the MS-DOS era cp437 codepages... In that situation, qrencode -t UTF8 | iconv -f utf8 -t cp437 may still work, as the same box drawings also existed back then.
  
  – grawity
  Apr 2 at 11:46
  
  
  

  
  
  
  


• 
  
  
  

  
  6
  

  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  
  To my surprise, the QR reader app on my iphone successfully read all these off my screen, including the ASCII # one. +1.
  
  – Digital Trauma
  Apr 3 at 17:10
  

  
  
  
  


• 
  
  
  

  
  3
  

  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  
  @Attie: Oh, I probably had accidentally selected some text so it shows part of the line in reverse-text.
  
  – grawity
  Apr 4 at 10:30
  

  
  
  
  

 | 
show 8 more comments

Yes! There is a utility called qrencode that can render these for you.

The only really important factor for a QR code is that the 2D array has "darker" and "ligher" pixels / segments. It can be colored too, though contrast can start to be an issue.

ASCII

Your ability to read this QR code will likely depend on the camera's resolution, distance, and the software you're using.

qrencode -t ASCIIi 'https://superuser.com/questions/1420001/is-it-possible-to-write-a-qr-code'

Note: I used -t ASCIIi (Inverted ASCII) because my terminal is White-on-Black.

ANSI

This mode works by setting the background color to black or white, and printing a number of space characters.

qrencode -t ANSI 'https://superuser.com/questions/1420001/is-it-possible-to-write-a-qr-code'

Some of the raw characters written to the terminal are shown below, these are ANSI escape codes. An "escape" character has a value of 0x1b and can often be written as e.

• 
  e[40m sets the background color to black


• 
  e[47m sets the background color to white


• 
  0x20 is an ASCII space

UTF-8

There is also a UTF-8 mode (-t UTF8). This mode uses the "half block" characters to increase the density, and cut the line count by half.

• ▀ - U+2580 / Upper Half Block


• ▄ - U+2584 / Lower Half Block


• █ - U+2588 / Full Block

Screenshot from @grawity (thanks)

qrencode -t UTF8 'https://superuser.com/questions/1420001/is-it-possible-to-write-a-qr-code'

qrencode -t ANSIUTF8 'https://superuser.com/questions/1420001/is-it-possible-to-write-a-qr-code'

share|improve this answer

edited Apr 2 at 10:42

answered Apr 1 at 14:54

AttieAttie

13k43548

qrencode -t ASCIIi 'https://superuser.com/questions/1420001/is-it-possible-to-write-a-qr-code'

qrencode -t ANSI 'https://superuser.com/questions/1420001/is-it-possible-to-write-a-qr-code'

qrencode -t UTF8 'https://superuser.com/questions/1420001/is-it-possible-to-write-a-qr-code'

qrencode -t ANSIUTF8 'https://superuser.com/questions/1420001/is-it-possible-to-write-a-qr-code'

share|improve this answer

edited Apr 2 at 10:42

answered Apr 1 at 14:54

AttieAttie

13k43548

answered Apr 1 at 14:54

AttieAttie

13k43548

answered Apr 1 at 14:54

AttieAttie

13k43548