What Is a vCard QR Code?

What Happens When Someone Scans One

With the details-inside kind, the phone decodes the pattern, recognises a contact, and shows a prompt to add it to the address book. No web page is opened and no network is needed. With the link kind, the phone opens a card page in the browser, and the person taps a save button to download the contact file. The first is a single step. The second is two steps, but it shows a page you control and can have more on it than a contact.

The Limit of Putting a Whole vCard in the Pattern

A QR code can only hold so much, and a full vCard with several numbers, an address and a note is a lot of text. The more you put in, the denser the pattern, and the larger it must be printed to scan reliably. A card with a photo cannot realistically use this approach at all, since an embedded image would overwhelm the code. People who try end up trimming the contact down to a name, one number and one email, and printing the result at a size that does not fit on a business card.

Why Editing Is the Deciding Factor

A pattern that contains a contact is a printout of that contact. Change the phone number and the old code still saves the old number, because nothing about the printed squares can be updated. A code that links to a card page has no such problem: you edit the page and every printed copy follows. For anything printed in a quantity, on anything you cannot easily replace, the link kind is the sensible default.

Frequently asked questions

Can I edit a vCard QR code after printing it?

Not if the details are inside the pattern. If the code points to a card page instead, you edit the page and the printed code keeps working.

Will every phone save the contact from a QR scan?

Current iPhone and Android cameras read QR codes without an app. A code that links to a page works everywhere that can open a web page, which is why it is the more dependable of the two.

How much can a vCard QR code hold?

A few hundred characters of contact text at practical print sizes. That is enough for a name, a number and an email, and not enough for a full card with a photo, which is a reason to link to a page instead.

Keep reading

Related terms

vCardA vCard is a standard file format for contact details, usually saved with a .vcf extension, that phones and email clients can read directly into an address book. It stores structured fields such as name, organisation, several phone numbers, several email addresses, a postal address and a photo.vCard File (.vcf)A .vcf file is a vCard saved to disk: a plain-text file with the extension .vcf that holds one or more people’s contact details. Opening it on a phone or computer offers to add those contacts to the address book, which makes it the standard way to move contacts between devices and apps.Static QR CodeA static QR code encodes its destination or data directly in the pattern, so the code can never be edited and no service is needed for it to work. Whatever was encoded on the day it was generated is what every scan returns, for as long as the code remains legible.Dynamic QR CodeA dynamic QR code encodes a short, fixed redirect link rather than the destination itself, so the destination can be changed at any time without altering or reprinting the code. Because the printed pattern never changes, a dynamic code can be edited after printing and can count its scans.

See it for your work

Digital business card for sales reps Digital business card for tradespeople

Put this into practice with your own card

Put your details on one card page, share it by link or QR code, and change them whenever they change. The printed code keeps working. No credit card required to start.

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