How to Generate QR Codes in Python

A QR code (quick-response code) is a type of two-dimensional matrix barcode. It uses four standardized modes of encoding: numeric, alphanumeric, byte or binary, and kanji. Its highest storage capacity can be 2,953 bytes.

Here is a table about different modes:

Input mode Mode indicator Max. characters Possible characters, default encoding
Numeric only 1 7,089 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9
Alphanumeric 2 4,296 0–9, A–Z (upper-case only), space, $, %, *, +, -, ., /, :
Binary/byte 4 2,953 ISO/IEC 8859-1
Kanji/kana 8 1,817 Shift JIS X 0208
Structured Append 3 unlimited Not specific

PS: structured append is a mode in which the data is divided into several barcodes.

In this article, we are going to talk about how to generate QR codes in different modes in Python.

Online version

Generate QR Codes in Different Modes

We are going to use the segno library to generate QR codes as this is the only library that supports structured append.

  1. Numeric QR Codes

    qrcode = segno.make_qr("9780593230060",mode="numeric")

    numeric

  2. Alphanumeric QR Codes

    qrcode = segno.make_qr("DYNAMSOFT",mode="alphanumeric")

    alphanumeric

  3. Kanji QR Codes

    qrcode = segno.make_qr("ディナムソフト",mode="kanji")

    kanji

    Shift-JIS will be used for encoding Kanji.

  4. Bytes QR Codes

    We can use bytes to store a UTF-8 encoded string.

    qrcode = segno.make_qr("Dynamsoft",mode="byte")

    byte-text

    We can also directly store the raw bytes of an image file.

    f = open("1-bit.png",mode="rb")
qrcode = segno.make_qr(f.read(),mode="byte")

    byte-image

  5. Structured Append QR Codes

    If the content we need to store is larger than one QR code’s capacity or the version of the QR code will be too high if we store it in one QR code which makes it difficult to print and read, we can store the content in multiple QR codes. This can be done using the structured append mode.

    f = open("8-bit.png",mode="rb")
qrcode_seq = segno.make_sequence(f.read(), symbol_count=2)

    structured_append_image

Read the QR Codes

You can use this Web QR Code Scanner based on Dynamsoft Barcode Reader to read the QR Codes we generated in this article.

Source Code

Check out the source code to have a try:

https://github.com/tony-xlh/qr-code-generator