vCard QR code generator

What is actually inside the file

A vCard is a plain text block that opens with BEGIN:VCARD, closes with END:VCARD, and carries one property per line. The version matters more than most generators let on. vCard 3.0 is defined by RFC 2426 and vCard 4.0 by RFC 6350, and the two are not interchangeable: 4.0 changed how structured values and parameters are written, so a contacts app expecting 3.0 can choke on a 4.0 card.

This tool writes vCard 3.0 deliberately. It is the version with the widest support across phone cameras and contact apps, and for the handful of fields that belong on a business card there is nothing 4.0 expresses that 3.0 cannot. The properties it emits:

• N the structured name, written last-name-first, which is what contacts apps sort on
• FN the formatted display name, the one a human reads
• TEL;TYPE=CELL the phone number, tagged as a mobile
• EMAIL, ORG, TITLE, and URL for address, company, job title, and website

Fields you leave blank are left out of the file entirely rather than written as empty properties. That keeps the payload smaller, which as the next section shows is the whole ballgame.

Why a full contact card makes a big, dense QR code

A QR code grows in discrete steps called versions. Every version adds four modules (the little squares) to each side, and the more data you encode the higher the version has to go. That matters in the physical world because the printed size stays fixed while the modules get smaller, and a camera can only resolve modules down to a certain width before the scan fails.

The table below is measured, not estimated. Each row is a real vCard built by this tool, encoded at error correction level H, which is the level the widget uses. A name on its own needs a version 8 code. Add a phone, an email, a company, a job title, and a website, and you are at version 17: 85 modules across instead of 49.

The last column is the part that decides whether your code scans. Print the full card at one inch square and each module is about 0.011 inches wide. Print a TangoQR short link at the same one inch and each module is about 0.027 inches, roughly two and a half times wider. Same paper, same printer, same distance, and one of them is far easier for a phone to read. If you are putting a contact code on something small, a badge or the corner of a business card, that ratio is the reason a full vCard sometimes will not scan and a link always does.

When a static vCard is the right answer

Often it is. A static vCard works with no network connection at all, which is worth real money at a trade show with saturated wifi or in a building with no signal. Nothing is tracked and nothing phones home, so it is the privacy-preserving option. And it never breaks, because there is no service in the middle that can go away. If your details are stable and you are printing a short run, encode the card and be done.

Switch to a link when any of three things is true. Your details change, and reprinting is expensive or impossible because the cards are already out in the world. You want the code small, on a badge or a sticker, where the density above becomes the binding constraint. Or you want to know whether anyone actually scans it, which a static code can never tell you, because nothing about it touches a server.

In those cases point a TangoQR code at a contact page you control. It stays a short URL no matter how much detail sits behind it, you can repoint it when you change jobs, and every scan is counted. The honest cost is that it needs a working connection at the moment of the scan, and it is a web page rather than a one-tap "Add to Contacts" prompt.