Tracy Hazzard shows how to make QR codes for presentations and playlists using QR Code Monkey. Use direct URLs, high contrast black and white for stage visibility, add a centered logo, and save at 2000×2000 pixels as PNG or SVG for reuse.
So you want to create a QR code. I create QR codes for everything. I create them for virtual presentations, I create them for live presentations, I create them for sales documents. Sometimes we put things when we are going to events and we have something on the table we want people to scan. We put them on banners, tablecloths. There's all kinds of places where you might want a QR code. And so you can associate that QR code with any destination location. It needs to be obviously something on the web somewhere. So in this case, I'm going to show an example using our Potatoes Podcast Masterclasses playlist. So we have a YouTube playlist. It's an ideal thing because nobody wants to type in this crazy URL that is the playlist up at the top. And if you see when I go and I'm going to copy, so if I go to share, you see this wild number list, YouTube.com playlist and a whole bunch of numbers. Right? Right. Nobody wants to remember that. So you either have to create a forwarding URL, but even that's still a lot to type in. So we do have potatoes.com masterclasses so I could use that for my QR code. It doesn't really matter, but I'm still getting them to this destination. And because I want them to go to this destination straight from their phone, maybe if they're scanning it while I'm on stage, then I definitely want to make sure that I give them right to the YouTube playlist. It's just faster, easier, less forwarding and all of that. So when you're creating a QR code, make it as direct as possible. So I'm going to copy this and then I'm going to show you exactly how to create this. So you go to QR Code Monkey, which is my preferred program to use. It's super easy. They don't track you and send you tons of emails and all kinds of other things. They're just super easy. It's super straightforward and it's still customizable at the end of the day. So the first thing is you're going to do is enter your content. And now that content is the URL that we just copied. So here I'm going to put my YouTube playlist. Then I'm going to set the colors. I prefer black and white. Anytime I give a presentation, especially on stage or even in the virtual situation, I find that when people are scanning from screens or the lighting could be off and different, and like in a ballroom, the lighting could be dark. I Want to make sure I have the best contrast possible. So I prefer black and white here. You can choose what you would like, but that's what I prefer. Then I'm going to add my logo because I want to add my company logo. Now, you could do that if I was sending this because it is a YouTube playlist. I could use the YouTube logo in the center of it. So if I click on that, it will add it to the center. But instead I'm going to upload an image of my file. This is our Potatoz bug. I've already made it black and white so that it goes right in line with everything else that's going to be there. What I do want to do is click the button that says remove the background behind the logo. You'll see why in a minute. Because it looks better this way. Then you can customize the design. You can decide to get fancy and use dots, or you can use circles. I like to use the circles on the side and the circles for the dots because it kind of goes along with our Potatoes theme and our circle bug logo. Right. So it goes along lines with that. But I don't really like to use dots here when I'm doing it on stage. So I really use a much thicker, broader body shape. You could use one with rounded edges, though. That would be okay. So I'm going to show you what that looks like here. But I like the rounded corners rather than the square corners because it just fits our logo. Totally up to you, what you want to do. Then you're going to go over here and you're going to scroll the bar to the highest quality possible. And in this case, it's 2,000 by 2,000 pixels. It just. It's going to give you a bigger image, but when you shrink it down, it's going to work really well. And you want to have it as large as possible because it makes it easier to scan. And so the higher the resolution, the better the scanning is going to be. Now I'm going to click Create QR Code. It takes a minute or two for it to pop up, but you can see there it is with the Potitize logo in the center and the circles on the outside. And if you don't like something, go ahead and make an adjustment and change it. And you have four options for how to download it. You can download it like a png, an svg, a PDF, or an eps. Because I'm going to put it in a presentation and I want it to take up as little space as possible. I'M going to download it as a png and I click download it. Gives you an ad while you're running it, which is totally fair because I used it for free, right? And it runs it, and it says, your QR code is being generated. Please do not close. And then it downloads all automatically to my computer, and it's ready to go. And I drop it into a QR code folder. I rename it, of course, so that I know exactly where it's going. But I drop it into a company QR code folder that I have that's just for everyone, so that they can access any of the QR codes we've created already, and they can use them on any documents. So here's how we do it here at Potterties.
