data | label on each line. Label uses the Position control above. Or leave labels blank and use the shared Label text for every row.Create QR codes and common 1D barcodes for links, SKUs and labels, then download images for print or screen use.
Anyone who needs a code on a label today: a small shop putting product numbers on shelf tickets, a warehouse operator replacing a carton label that no longer scans, someone printing a QR code for a menu or a wi-fi network, or a developer generating a test barcode to point a scanner at. Nine symbologies are supported, from QR through to Pharmacode, and the code is generated in your browser rather than fetched from an image service — so the value you type is never sent anywhere.
Example 1. QR for https://toolsare.us/ scanned with a phone camera.
Example 2. Code 128 for a simple SKU string on a shelf label.
Example 3. Bulk paste when the tool offers multi-line generation for a sheet of codes.
Larger codes with high contrast scan more reliably. Avoid stretching the image. On paper, matte stock usually beats glossy glare for handheld scanners.
Choose Phone wallpaper QR codes at the top of the page and the panel becomes a phone screen at its real pixel size — an iPhone 15 Pro Max is 1290 × 2796 — and a search box above the list covers iPhones back to the 8, the Galaxy S, A and Z ranges, Pixels back to the 7 and the recent OnePlus phones, plus a custom size for anything else. Type “s25 ultra”, “pixel 9” or even a resolution such as “1440x3120” and the phone on screen changes as you type. Each model is listed at its panel’s full native resolution: several Samsung and Pixel phones ship set lower to save battery, and a wallpaper made at the full size scales down cleanly where one made at the lower size would blur if the setting were ever raised. Load a photo, set a code up on the left, press Place this code, and repeat for as many codes as you want. Each one drags and resizes independently, snapping to the centre, the margins and the other codes, and the finished PNG comes out at the full device resolution ready to save to Photos and set as a wallpaper.
It is a genuinely useful trick whenever a code has to be read off a screen rather than off paper: a gate or door code for a courier, a Wi-Fi join code for visitors, a payment or contact link at a market stall, an emergency contact card, or a warehouse reference you would otherwise carry on a scrap of label. It works because the phone holding the code never has to read it — the camera pointed at it does.
Most of a lock screen is already occupied, and not in the places people expect. The clock and date take the top fifth. Notifications fill the middle and lower middle, and they arrive after you have admired your handiwork, so a code centred on the screen spends its life underneath two unread messages. The bottom corners hold the torch and camera buttons. The dependable strip is the band immediately below the date, which is where a placed code lands by default, and the dashed overlay marks the rest so you can see what you are aiming between. Turning notification previews off, or using the image as a home-screen wallpaper instead, opens the middle back up.
A code on its own tells nobody what it is for. Type a caption into Label text and choose whether it sits above, below, left or right of the code, and it is placed on the wallpaper along with it — “Front gate”, “Guest Wi‑Fi”, “Menu”. Over a photo the caption is drawn in white with a dark outline round the letters rather than in a flat colour, because any single colour that reads against a pale sky disappears against a dark one.
Behind each code chooses between a white card and a transparent background. The card is the one that scans: it guarantees the quiet zone and the contrast whatever the photo does underneath. Transparent looks far better — the wallpaper shows through the gaps between the modules — and it works when the photo behind the code is plain and clearly lighter or darker than the code itself. Over a busy or mid-toned photograph it will not read at all, so if you choose it, scan the finished wallpaper before you depend on it.
A code on a screen has two problems paper does not: glare, and a backlight that dims itself. Leave the white card behind each code switched on — it supplies the quiet zone and the contrast, and without it a dark photo shows straight through a transparent QR and nothing will read it at all. Make the code larger than looks necessary, because the scanning camera is working through a reflective sheet of glass, and turn the brightness up before handing the screen over. When you set the image as a wallpaper, switch Perspective Zoom off: it crops and enlarges the picture, which moves and shrinks every code on it. Depth Effect can likewise lift part of the photo in front of your codes. Then scan the result off the actual phone before you rely on it.
The photo you load never leaves the browser. It is read from disk, drawn into a canvas in the page, and the PNG is produced on your own machine — nothing is uploaded at any stage.
QR holds the most and is the only one here that copes with being partly damaged — raise the error correction level and a code can still read with a chunk obscured, at the cost of a denser pattern. Code 128 is the general-purpose 1D choice: any printable ASCII, any length, and the one to reach for when the content is a mixed reference rather than a retail number.
The retail formats are fixed-length and not interchangeable. EAN-13 takes 12 digits, UPC-A 11, EAN-8 7, and ITF-14 13 — in each case the final check digit is calculated for you, and supplying the full-length value works only if your check digit is already correct. Code 39 is older and less dense but very widely supported; it accepts letters, digits, space and a few symbols, and encodes letters as uppercase. MSI is digits only, used mainly for shelf marking, and Pharmacode takes a plain number from 3 to 131070 for pharmaceutical packaging.
Tick Transparent beside the background colour and the code is exported with no background at all, so whatever sits behind it shows through — a photograph, a coloured page, a slide, a phone wallpaper. Both the PNG and the SVG come out clear; there is no white square to cut out afterwards.
What it costs is the guarantee of contrast. A QR code is read by telling light modules from dark ones, and with no background of its own the code borrows whatever is underneath. Over a plain area clearly lighter than the code it reads perfectly; over a busy or mid-toned photograph it may not read at all, and over something darker than the modules it will not read even in principle. The quiet zone has the same problem: it is still there, but it is only quiet if what shows through it is quiet.
1D barcodes keep their white background whatever this is set to. A scanner finds a barcode by looking for the alternating light and dark bars, and a transparent one laid over a photograph stops being a barcode in any useful sense. If you need one on a picture, put it on a plain panel first.
Scaling a barcode down to fit a space. Bar width is what a scanner reads, and shrinking the image narrows every bar until the reader gives up — if it must be smaller, shorten the data instead. Trimming the quiet zone is the same mistake in a different form: the blank margin either side is part of the code, not decoration, which is why the margin here will not go below 10. Entering the check digit yourself when the format already adds it is the third, and it is why an EAN-13 that looks right is rejected at the till.
Use Scale 3 or above for anything a phone camera has to read; phone cameras are far less forgiving than a dedicated laser scanner. Download the SVG rather than the PNG when the code is going into a printed document — it stays sharp at any size, where a PNG will soften as the printer scales it. Tick Show A4 page before printing to see the code against a real sheet at a real size, and set the print width in millimetres rather than guessing. Always scan the finished label with the device that will be used in practice before you print a run of them.
Every option is a standard form control — text fields, sliders, selects and checkboxes — so the whole page can be driven from the keyboard. The requirement line under the data box states each format's rules and updates as you type, reporting in text whether the current value will encode, so you are not relying on spotting a red outline. The preview is an image and cannot be read by a screen reader, but the value being encoded stays visible as text in the field above it.
The value you encode never leaves your browser. The code image is generated in the page by a library loaded from this site, not requested from an image service, so the data you turn into a barcode — a product number, a URL, a customer reference — is never sent anywhere. Downloads are produced locally, and any background photo you add stays on your device too. Advertising cookies and the choices available to you are covered in the Privacy Policy and in the consent notice shown on your first visit.
To read codes rather than create them, the Barcode and QR Reader decodes from a photo and has extra recovery passes for damaged labels. If you are checking scanned labels against an expected list, the HU Checker is built for that. For putting the finished codes into a document, see the PDF tools. The full tool list is on the home page.
No — local generation.
Most phones read QR; 1D needs a compatible scanner and quiet zone.
Only if you encode a proper Wi‑Fi QR payload string.
No — these are static images, not tracked short links.
Use bulk features when shown in the UI.
After load, yes.
Yes — pick Phone wallpaper QR codes at the top of the page, load a photo, and place as many codes as you like on a phone-sized canvas. The PNG exports at the device's native resolution.
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