Today we’ve added QR codes to the list of supported barcodes in barcode column and formula in TeamDesk.
1D barcodes are usually limited to digits and/or ASCII characters and quickly grow in size when amount of information to encode increases. In contrast, QR codes do not have those limitations, rather you can put letters from every alphabet in the world. Also even large amount of information – up to 7,089 digits or 4,296 mixed digits and letters is encoded in a compact and efficient way.
QR codes use rather complex text encoding scheme. There are many ways to encode the same text and some ways are more efficient than others. While we are trying to squeeze as much as possible out of input text, we can not do some transformation without your consent. For example, all uppercase letters take less space than lowercase letters. When encoding, say, link to your website, try uppercasing address and case-insensitive parameters. For example, below are two QR codes, one to the left is HTTP://TEAMDESK.NET and one to the right is http://teamdesk.net. See the difference?
On a side note we are using error correction level M for our QR code implementation. Hence up to 15% of data can be restored if printed QR code is damaged.
QR codes and links
While you can encode links to open your favorite website using QR codes there are couple of other link types that might be useful, especially on mobile devices. Please note, however, that support for those link types may vary depending on mobile OS and scanner application.
mailto:<email>?subject=<subject text>&cc=<cc-email>&bcc=<bcc-email>&body=<body-text>
Opens email program with new email message. subject, cc, bcc and body parameters are all optional but their support varies between scanner applications.
tel:+0123456789
Calls the phone number
facetime:+0123456789
Calls Apple FaceTime number.
sms:+0123456789
Opens messaging application with new text message to phone number.
smsto:+0123456789:<message-text>
Acts are previous one, but pre-fills message with specified text.
