URL QR Code Generator

This generator encodes a link payload. The grammar is: The URL itself, including the scheme.

The example above, https://compoundpage.com/unit-converter, is 39 bytes, which at error correction level M fits a version 3 symbol, 29 modules square. The encoder scored all eight mask patterns and chose 2, which is not a preference: the specification requires the lowest-penalty mask, so any correct encoder given this text produces this identical image.

The scheme is the part people leave off, and leaving it off changes what happens. https://example.com opens a browser; example.com is plain text, and most scanners will show it rather than follow it. Always include https://. Two other things decide whether a link code works in practice. Length drives the version, so a URL with a long tracking query ends up as a dense symbol that needs a bigger print or a closer camera. Strip the UTM parameters before encoding. And the uppercase trick is real: URLs encoded entirely in uppercase can use alphanumeric mode rather than byte mode and come out measurably smaller, which is why some printed codes look oddly shouty. Domains are case-insensitive so this is safe for the host, but paths are not, so it is only safe for the part before the first slash.

On the error correction level: M recovers about 15% of the symbol. That is the single most useful dial on a QR code and the one most often left alone. Raising it costs capacity, which pushes the version up, which makes each module smaller at the same printed size. So the right level is the lowest one that survives where the code will live. A code on a screen needs almost none; a code on a sticker on a machine needs a lot.

Nothing about this is sent anywhere. The code is built from the text in the field, in your browser, and the site has no server that could receive it. It also does not expire, because there is no redirect in it: what the camera reads is your payload, not a reference to a row in somebody's database. A QR code that goes through a shortener stops working the day the shortener does.