Whether it is a mobile number, some text, or a URL, there’s one thing in common. You can encode all such information easily into a QR code. Anybody can easily retrieve the information by scanning the code with a smartphone. Everybody knows this regarding QR Codes. Even if you go online, you can find a handful of websites offering you the service to easily create QR codes for raw texts, mobile numbers or contacts, URLs, etc. for free.

But what if you want to create multiple QR codes for a project, or you need to place multiple QR codes for an assortment of text-based items? Generating QR Codes for multiple items one by one can be a time-consuming task, or websites can charge you a handsome amount for the same. But you can use the power of spreadsheets to create QR codes in bulk from any type of raw data, obviously if it can be encoded in a QR code. That said, today I’ll talk about how you can create QR codes using Google Sheets, and save time.

So without any further delay let’s get started with how you can create QR Codes easily on Google Sheets.

Generating QR for links

Say, for example, we have some links in column A, and we want the respective QR codes to be in column B.

Getting started with cell A2, where we have our first link, and the corresponding QR code will be in cell B2.

We can later drag the formula into the subsequent cells.

So the formula in cell B2 will go as follows.

=IMAGE("https://api.qrserver.com/v1/create-qr-code/?size=150x150&data="&ENCODEURL(A2))

Google Sheets might ask you to send your data to external parties as that external party will generate the QR code. Simply click on ‘Allow access’, when permission is asked.

Let me briefly explain the formula.

After the QR code appears, you can resize the rows, in the usual way to make the QR easily visible.

IMAGE: As the QR code will be rendered as an image, this tells Google Sheets to draw an image.

https://api.qrserver.com/v1/create-qr-code/?: This is the URL to the QR code API that will be used to generate the QR code

size=150×150: This refers to the QR code size. If you set a different size, make sure that both the length and breadth are the same.

data=&ENCODEURL(A2): This refers to the data that needs to be encoded into the QR code.

*The ENCODEURL function converts the text to an URL or corrects the URL, if there is something wrong with the URL.

Generating QR codes for other items

If you are dealing with any other type of text element, here’s how you can create QR codes for them.

If you have the data, say a mobile number or any other text element in cell A3, and the QR code will be in cell B3, the formula in B3 will go as follows.

=IMAGE("https://api.qrserver.com/v1/create-qr-code/?size=150x150&data="&A3)

As the text does not refer to any URL, we are not using the ENCODEURL function.

If you create QR codes quite often, this tutorial is surely going to help you generate them with the fewest possible steps. All you need to do is, keep connected to the internet, as Google Sheets also uses an online API to generate QR codes.

So, that’s all about how you can create QR codes using Google Sheets. Do you have any questions? Feel free to comment on the same below.

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