Short links and QR codes

Short Links and QR is the tool in your dashboard for making a short web address, turning it into a QR code you can print, and changing where that code points afterwards. It also styles the code in your colours, checks that the finished artwork really scans before it will let you download it, and counts the people who use it. You can get a plain QR code out of a free generator in about ten seconds, so the rest of this article is about what this adds and when that is worth having.

On this page

• The one idea that matters
• How to use it
• Everything it does
• When to use it for marketing
• What it does not do
• How the three options compare
• The same comparison, as a picture
• Where to find it

The one idea that matters

A QR code is a picture of a web address. Whatever address is baked into the picture is fixed forever, because the picture is already on the flyer.

Codes made here encode our short address, not your destination. When someone scans it, we look up where that code should go right now and send them there. The printed picture never changes. Where it points is a setting you can edit.

That single difference is what the rest of this article is about. If your menu moves, if a promotion ends, if a page is renamed, the 2,000 table tents already in the room keep working.

How to use it

Everything starts on one page. In the client portal it is called Links, in the main sidebar. If you are looking at Mission Control instead, it is called Short links, inside the Marketing group. There are three ways in, and the guided builder is the one to start with.

The guided builder, start to finish

1. Open Links and press Guided QR code.
2. Pick what the code is for (social profile, review page, menu or PDF, shop or order, event or tickets, contact details, or any other website page) and paste the web address it should open.
3. Pick where it will be seen: sticker or label, business card or flyer, menu or table tent, poster or A-frame, window or storefront, vehicle or banner, or a screen.
4. Read the box that appears. It gives you a minimum print width in centimetres for that placement, and says so when the length of the address, rather than the viewing distance, is what pushed the size up.
5. Accept or edit the short ending it suggests for you.
6. Choose the look: a pattern, the code colour, the background colour, a frame, and the words on the label bar. Watch the contrast line under the colours and fix it if it turns red.
7. Check the summary and press Create QR code.
8. Copy the short address, name the file, and download it as PNG, JPG or SVG. Send SVG to a print shop, because it scales to any size without going soft. PNG is right for screens and a desk printer.
9. Press Fine-tune the design if you want gradients, a logo in the middle, or a second design on the same code.

The other two ways in

• New link. The fast one. Paste a destination, get a code. The preview you land on is a plain black code with download buttons and no design controls, plus a line pointing you at the link's own page. That is where the colours, logos and frames live.
• Bulk from CSV. A whole print run at once from a spreadsheet: many links, one shared design, a zip of checked codes out the other end. A batch shares one campaign name, but the links come out untagged, so add tags afterwards if you sort by them.

Then everything else lives on the link's own page

1. Click a row in the list to open it. The top shows the full short address with a copy button, the number of times it has been used, and when it was last used.
2. Edit the destination, the title, the tags and the expiry date in the grid below.
3. Open App store links or Scheduled destinations if you need them.
4. Use the Designs bar to add, rename, duplicate or delete a design, and to mark one as the default.
5. Style the open design in the four tabs beside the preview: Shape, Colour, Frame, Icons.
6. Watch the line under the preview until it says the code has been checked, then download.
7. Press Save changes at the bottom. It saves the link fields and the design you have open together.

Worth knowing: renaming a design, duplicating it, deleting it and making it the default all apply the moment you press them. The colour and shape controls do not: they wait for Save changes. Save before you switch from one design to another.

Everything it does

The full list, grouped. Nothing here costs extra: it is part of your existing plan, and both the tool and its report are on by default. The report is a separate switch from the tool itself, so if the numbers are missing while the links work, that is the one to ask us about.

Checking the destination is still there

• The link's page shows the state of its destination the last time it was checked: responding, having trouble, or gone, with the response code and the address that was actually probed.
• A page behind a login or rate limit is reported as unverifiable rather than broken, because a refusal to answer us is not the same as being down.
• You can stop checking a particular link and resume it later, which is the right answer for a destination that is meant to refuse robots.
• This is a status you look at, not a watchdog. There is no alerting, and no promise about how often it runs.

The link itself

• A short web address that points wherever you tell it, and can be repointed later.
• The ending is 7 random lowercase characters unless you choose your own. Your own can be 3 to 64 characters, letters, numbers, hyphens and underscores, starting with a letter or a number.
• Twenty one words are reserved and refused (things like admin, login, billing, support and qr), and an ending somebody else already has is refused rather than quietly changed.
• A friendly title, up to 200 characters.
• Up to 12 tags per link, 40 characters each, with a tag filter on the list.
• Search across the ending, the title and the destination.
• An expiry date and time. After it the code stops working, and the person scanning gets a plain page reading "This link has expired". It is not your branding and not your homepage, so think twice before putting an expiry on something you are printing in volume.
• Duplicate a link: a brand new code that carries over the title, tags, destination, expiry, domain and every saved design.
• Copy the short address to the clipboard from the list or from the link's page.
• Archive a link, which takes it off the default list but keeps the printed code working, or restore it.
• Delete a link. The code stops resolving and its scan history goes with it. The confirmation warns you that anything already printed will be dead, which is the part that matters.
• Every create, edit, archive, restore and delete is written to your activity log.

Your own web address on the code

• If your website is with us, links can read yourcompany.com/l/abc123 instead of ours. Set one default for the whole company, and override it on any single link.
• A domain is only accepted if you own it and it is genuinely answering. We check it live before saving.
• Changing the domain does not break anything already printed. Both addresses resolve the same code.
• The dropdown only appears when there is more than one option, so a company with no site with us will not see it.
• Every character in the printed address counts toward how dense the code is, domain included. The ending is simply the part you control, so shortening it is how you get a code that prints smaller. A long custom domain pushes the other way.

Where the link sends people

• Edit the destination whenever you like. The redirect is a temporary one, so nothing tells a phone or a search engine to remember the old page.
• Destinations must be a full http or https web address, up to 2,048 characters. The address is checked again every time somebody scans.
• Tracking values (source, medium, campaign, term and content) can be added to the destination, so your website analytics sees the visit as part of a campaign. Anything you already put on the address yourself is never overwritten, and to change them later you edit the destination itself. The guided builder fills these in for you, along with a title and two tags, and shows what it added on the review step. Use New link instead if you want the destination left exactly as you typed it.
• App store routing. iPhone and iPad visitors go to the App Store, Android visitors go to Google Play, everyone else gets the normal destination.
• Modern iPads report themselves as Macs, so a Mac is only sent to the App Store when the visit came from an actual scan. A desktop click stays on your web page.
• Scheduled destinations. Up to 24 dated switch points on one link, so the same printed code can point somewhere else from a chosen date with no reprint.
• The most recent date that has already passed wins, there are no gaps, and a switch point typed wrong is skipped rather than breaking the code.
• The schedule decides what the destination is right now, and app routing can then override it for a phone.
• No combination of these settings can leave a printed code with nowhere to go. Every path falls back to the link's own destination.

Designing the code

The full designer sits on the link's page and in the bulk step, arranged in four tabs: Shape, Colour, Frame and Icons.

• Shape. Six patterns (Classic, Rounded, Extra round, Dots, Classy, Classy round), three shapes for the three big corner squares, and two for the dot inside them.
• Colour. A code colour, a background colour, and a separate colour for the corner eyes. Leave the eye colour empty and it follows the code.
• No background at all, so the code can sit directly on coloured packaging.
• A gradient across the code, linear or radial, with 2 to 6 colour stops you drag, add and remove. Linear direction is a slider from 0 to 360 degrees in 5 degree steps.
• The gradient runs across the whole code instead of restarting inside each corner, and the corners join in unless you give them their own colour.
• Frame. Seven frames: none, border, double, corners, label below, label above, and a pill. Four of them carry a call to action.
• The call to action is up to 24 characters, printed in capitals, and starts as SCAN ME. It shrinks to fit rather than spilling over the edge.
• Text size from 50 to 200 percent, plus letter spacing and word spacing sliders, and a frame colour separate from the code colour.
• Icons. A logo or an icon in the middle of the code, sized from 15 to 40 percent of the width, with a warning once you go past 35.
• A contrast plate behind a centre icon, circle or rounded square, so the pattern does not show through the shape.
• A second artwork slot beside the call to action, with its own colour, plate and size from 50 to 300 percent.
• Upload your own PNG, JPEG, WebP or SVG up to 10MB into either slot. A large image is shrunk automatically instead of being refused.
• Every code is drawn at the highest error correction level, which is what lets a logo sit in the middle at all.

The icon library

• 2,860 built-in icons: 587 brand marks, 2,000 solid shapes and 273 outlines. One search box across the lot, showing up to 120 matches at a time, so search rather than scroll.
• 173 of the brand marks carry their official brand colour and take it as soon as you pick them.
• Icons are baked into the file as shapes rather than a font, so a downloaded SVG still shows the icon anywhere you open it.
• Anything you upload is saved to your own library automatically, so the same mark can go on other links.
• Your uploads are private to your company. Only our staff can promote one into the shared library that every company can see.
• An uploaded mark is copied into the design, so editing or deleting the library copy can never change a code already printed. A built-in icon is stored by name, and built-ins cannot be removed.

Reusing a look

• Start from one of your 12 most recently edited designs, with a colour chip showing which code it came from.
• My brand colours builds a starting palette from your own brand colours, and guarantees it still scans.
• Roles are worked out by measured contrast rather than by which colour you called primary, so the darker one takes the code itself.
• A brand colour too light to scan is darkened as little as it has to be, keeping its hue, and you are told that is what happened.
• Applying a look is one press, and it offers Undo.
• Both of these appear on the link's page and in the bulk design step. They are not on the quick preview you get straight after creating a link.

Several designs on one code

• Up to 20 named designs on one link, so a jar label, a window poster and a slide can each look right without being three different codes.
• Rename, duplicate, delete, and mark one as the default. A link always keeps at least one design.
• Every design opens the same short address, so all of them land in the same place and one destination change moves all of them.
• Deleting a design never touches the code or the link.

Making sure it scans

• The finished artwork is decoded back and checked that it really says the right address. The check runs a moment after each change, and a download is blocked once a definite failure is known.
• It is checked at two sizes: once at 1024 pixels, and again deliberately small at 256, to imitate a code printed tiny.
• A code that cannot be read, or that reads as the wrong address, cannot be downloaded at all. A code that only works when printed large is flagged but still allowed.
• If the check cannot run at all in your browser, it never blocks you.
• The guided builder works out a minimum print size from two rules and takes whichever is larger: roughly a tenth of the distance people will stand at, and half a millimetre for every square in the code, with a floor of 2cm.
• The seven placements carry real distances: a sticker at 20cm, a card or flyer at 30cm, a menu or table tent at 45cm, a poster or A-frame at 150cm, a window at 250cm, a vehicle or banner at 600cm, and a screen with no print size at all.
• The size advice reads the address that actually gets printed, not the destination behind it, so it is honest about the code in your hand.
• The guided builder also measures colour contrast, and catches the case people get wrong most: a light code on a dark panel, which looks bold and does not scan. It warns you. It does not stop you. The decode check at download time is the real backstop.

Getting the file out

• Download as PNG, JPG or SVG.
• PNG and JPG come out 2,048 pixels wide, drawn from exactly the picture in the preview.
• JPG cannot hold transparency, so a code with no background is exported on white rather than turning black and unscannable.
• Name the file yourself. The default is the code plus the design name, for example fb-k-window-poster-qr.png.
• If an export fails, it tells you instead of quietly producing nothing.

A whole print run at once

• Upload or paste a CSV and get many links in one go, all sharing a single design.
• The spreadsheet needs a destination column; a title column is optional. There is a template CSV to download.
• Up to 200 rows per batch, with a preview of the first five and a count of what is usable.
• A bad row is named and skipped rather than killing the batch.
• The design step here is the full designer, including Start from and your saved logos.
• The preview uses a stand-in address of exactly the length the real ones will be, so what you approve is what ships.
• Every code is decoded from its own artwork before it is allowed into the zip. Failures are named and left out, and the ones that passed are still delivered.
• The zip holds one PNG per code plus a spreadsheet matching every code to its title and short address. Two rows with the same title still produce two files.
• An optional placement gives print size advice for the whole batch.
• An optional campaign name adds campaign tracking values to every destination in the batch, so the whole run reports as one campaign in your website analytics.

The report

• Seven, 30 or 90 days.
• Four numbers: total, clicks, QR scans, and unique visitors.
• Clicks and scans are counted separately, because the printed artwork carries a quiet marker that a typed or shared link does not.
• A daily line chart of clicks against scans.
• Six breakdowns. QR designs comes first, because which printed thing worked is the question the panel exists to answer, then referrers, devices, browsers, operating systems and countries.
• A lifetime count and a last used date on the link itself. That counter mixes clicks and scans and never resets, so it will not match the totals for a 30 day window.
• Bots, link previewers, prefetches and silent probes are never counted, so the number is lower than a raw hit count and closer to the number of real people.
• Unique visitors is an approximation, counted per day. One person who scans on Monday and again on Friday is two.
• No raw visitor address is ever stored. It is turned into a one way code that changes every day, and the country and region come from the network, not from anything a visitor typed.
• History is kept for 365 days and cleared out nightly.

Who can use it

• Any member of your company can create and edit your company's links. There is no separate permission to hand out.
• A printed code keeps redirecting even if the module is switched off for your company. Only expiry or deletion stops a code working.
• Our staff see the same tool. With no company selected they get every company's links in one list, and can create or edit one for you when you call. Bulk from CSV is the one thing that scope does not carry.

When to use it for marketing

Every example below is a real shape of job: the situation, and what you would set up. Skip to the one that sounds like yours.

A seasonal push that has to start and stop on a date

A gift box company prints packaging in September that has to sell holiday boxes in December and everyday tins in January.

Set up: one link on the packaging pointing at the normal shop page, then two switch points, 1 December to the holiday page and 6 January back to the shop. The code follows the most recent date that has passed, so nobody has to remember to log in that morning.

The print is due before the page exists

A construction firm is ordering job site signs this week and the project page will not be written for another month.

Set up: create the link now, point it at any page that is already live, print the signs, and change the destination when the real page goes up.

A menu, price list or service list that keeps changing

A dermatology practice has a laminated card in every treatment room pointing at a services and pricing page that gets rewritten twice a year.

Set up: one link on the card. When the page is replaced or renamed, change the destination and leave the cards alone. This is worth the most where the printed item is expensive or awkward to replace.

Two printed pieces, and you want to know which one pulled

A dry cleaner runs the same offer on a counter card and on a bag tag, and has no idea which one people actually use.

Set up: one link, and two designs on it. Name them "counter card" and "bag tag". Each design carries its own invisible marker, so the report lists them separately.

What makes it work: several designs on one code, each counted on its own line under QR designs. One destination to maintain, one link to repoint later, and still a straight answer about which piece pulled. Note what the number is: scans, meaning people who took the nudge, not orders placed.

A batch of signs that all point somewhere different

A surplus retailer wants a code on 60 pallet signs, each going to that item's page.

Set up: a spreadsheet with a destination and a title per row, one design across the whole run, then download the zip. Keep the spreadsheet that comes back in the zip: it is what matches each PNG to the right sign.

Direct mail, or a card in the box

A gift box company puts a reorder card in every shipment and a postcard in a mailing, and wants to know whether either is worth the paper.

Set up: a link for the mailing and a link for the box insert, each with a label bar such as REORDER ONLINE, both carrying the same campaign name. Your website analytics then sees those visits as part of the campaign instead of as a mystery, and each link's own report separates scans from clicks day by day.

A show, a fair or an event weekend

A museum takes a banner, a table handout and a staff badge to a two day event, and the ticket page is useless on Monday.

Set up: a link per item if you want to compare them, all with a switch point for the Monday after that repoints them at a recap page or the newsletter. Nothing you handed out becomes litter the moment the show ends.

A vehicle wrap, a yard sign or window glass

A construction firm wants a code on the truck, readable from across a car park. A dry cleaner wants one on the window, readable from the pavement.

Set up: use the guided builder, choose "Vehicle or banner" or "Window or storefront", print it at the size it recommends, and send the sign shop the SVG rather than the PNG so it can be scaled to a door without going soft.

Getting an app onto phones from one printed code

A business with a customer app has one door decal and two app stores.

Set up: paste the App Store address and the Google Play address onto the link and leave the link's own destination as your web page. iPhones go to one store, Android phones to the other, and anything else lands on the web page.

Asking people for a review

A wellness practitioner wants a small card to hand over at the end of an appointment.

Set up: use the guided builder, choose the review purpose, and paste your Google or Yelp review link. The label bar is set to LEAVE A REVIEW and the matching icon is picked from the address you pasted, so you are not designing from a blank page. Be clear on what the number then means: it counts scans, which is people who took the nudge, not reviews left. Only the review site can tell you the second number.

Hiring

A construction firm puts "Now hiring" on the truck doors and a card in the site trailer, and the job is filled six weeks later.

Set up: one link to the application form, tagged "hiring". When the role closes, point the same link at your general careers page rather than leaving people at a dead form. Archive it when you are done and the printed code still works.

When a plain static code is the better answer

This tool is not free of cost: it ties a printed asset to an account. Some jobs are better served by a plain code from a free generator, which points straight at your own site and needs no supplier at all.

• Anything meant to outlive us. A plaque, an engraved sign, a cornerstone, a printed book. If nobody will ever reprint it, do not put a middleman in the middle of it.
• Anything that is not a web address. A Wi-Fi join code, a contact card that saves to the phone, a phone number, a text message or an email address all have to be a plain static code. Short links carry http and https addresses only.
• A destination that will genuinely never move, when you do not need numbers. Your home page on a business card is the standard example.
• A code only you will scan. An internal door sign, a shortcut for two members of staff, a link in a deck you present yourself. There is no marketing question to answer.
• Print you do not control. A directory advert or a co-op flyer where somebody else builds the artwork will not carry your file, so the scan check never happens.
• Serialised codes in the thousands. One code per unit for warranty or stock tracking is a different job. A run here is 200 rows at a time, so ask us before planning around it.
• When you need to know who scanned, not how many. The report is counts, days and a country, never a name. If you need the person, put a form on the page the code opens.

What it does not do

Worth knowing before you commit a print run.

• The codes depend on us staying live. A code points at our short address, so if you leave, those printed codes stop resolving. A code from a free generator points straight at your own site and will outlive any supplier, including us. If you are printing something meant to last for years, that is a real argument for the plain version.
• The ending of a code cannot be renamed later. You can choose it when you create the link, and after that it is fixed, because printed codes have to keep meaning. Pick the ending with the print run in mind, and identify a sign in the title, never in the code.
• Nothing tells you when a destination breaks. The link's page shows whether its destination was responding when it was last checked, and you can turn that check off for a link, but there is no alert: nothing emails you. Do not rely on it to catch a page you deleted or renamed. Check before a print run rather than after.
• Scans from before design tracking are bucketed honestly. Codes printed before each design carried its own marker report as "Printed before design tracking", and a design you delete keeps its past scans under "Removed design". Neither is quietly folded into a design that is still live.
• Scan counts are deliberately conservative. Bots, link previews and prefetches are excluded, so our number is usually lower than a raw hit count and closer to the number of real people.
• There is no rules engine. Beyond dated switch points and the two app stores, a code cannot decide anything for itself. It cannot serve one page in the morning and another at night, or a different page per town.
• The report window is shorter than the history. The numbers are kept for 365 days, but the panel offers 7, 30 and 90 days.
• Your own web address needs your site to be with us. Otherwise the printed address is ours, which reads a little oddly on a business card.
• The limits. Up to 20 designs per link, 24 scheduled switch points per link, 12 tags per link, 200 rows per bulk import, 10MB per uploaded logo, and 365 days of history.

How the three options compare

What each option gives you, for the same printed code.

The question	Here	A free generator, including an AI chat	A link shortening service
How fast do I get a code?	A few minutes, in your dashboard.	Seconds. This is where it wins.	About a minute, after signing up.
Can I make it look like my brand?	Yes. Colours, shapes, logo, label bar.	Usually yes. Many free tools do logos and colours.	Usually yes, often on a paid tier.
Can I change where it points after printing?	Yes, as often as you like.	No. The address is baked into the picture.	Usually yes. Often a paid feature.
Does anything confirm it actually scans?	Yes. Every download is decoded back, twice, and blocked if it fails.	No. You find out at the printer.	Not typically.
Does it tell me how big to print it?	Yes, a minimum size for the placement.	No.	Not typically.
Do I find out how many people scanned it?	Yes, with bots excluded.	No. Nothing reports back.	Yes. This is their core product.
Can I tell two printed items apart?	Yes. One link, a named design per printed item, and each one counted separately in the report.	No.	Usually only by making separate links.
Whose web address is on it?	Ours by default. Your own domain if your site is with us.	Yours. It points straight at your site.	Theirs by default. Your own domain is generally paid.
What does it cost?	No extra charge on top of your existing plan.	Free.	Free to start. The useful parts are paid.
What if the supplier goes away?	The printed codes stop working. This is the real trade.	Nothing breaks. It never needed anyone.	The printed codes stop working.

The same comparison, as a picture

Where to find it

Open Links in the Marketing group of your portal, or Short links if you are in Mission Control. Create a link, paste the destination, then open it to design the QR code and download it. Point your own phone at the finished code before you send it to the printer, as a last check.

If you would rather we set the first batch up for you, ask through the usual support channel and we will do it with you.