this post was submitted on 06 May 2025
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TeX typesetting
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A place to share ideas, resources, tips, and hacks for Donald Knuths typesetting software TeX. All variants and formats like OpTeX, LaTeX and ConTeXt are welcome.
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I'm so tired of overly busy qr codes. I don't need your logo, it doesn't need to be cute. I would much rather something that works more often and from greater distances than something that's cute.
It should also be noted that the QR code pixels will get smaller and smaller the more data you're encoding. People will encode 200 character urls that result in overly high resolution QR codes instead of just using something like tinyURL to generate a 10-15 character URL which generates an easily scanned QR code every time.
I’m tired of having to search through text to get enough of an idea of what a QR code is before I go to the trouble of pulling out a scanner. Is it an URL? Wi-Fi creds? It’s not about being cute. It’s about being informative in as little space as possible. Do you scan a naked QR code without cause? Street wise users want an indication of what they are scanning in the very least.
You have control over that. If you want to hold the pixel size constant, the qr code’s geometry gets bigger. The qrcode LaTeX pkg includes a size parameter. Either way, up to 30% of the space could be wasted, depending on the use case.
QR codes have countless applications. Not all QR codes need to be scanned from the other side of a room. When a QR code appears on a document that someone is holding, as opposed to a sign, it only needs to function within 10cm. I’m working on 2-column bilingal legal documents citing laws from different countries. There is insufficient space for country indicators and 30% of the QR code is just wasted space in this context, which really adds up of you have many QR codes. In a corner case, flaws from multiple generations of photocopies could manifest but 30% redundancy is overkill. So putting the country indicator for the law being referenced inside the QR code makes the most efficient use of page real estate without resorting to poor aesthetics.
Also, QR codes are ugly. I’m happy to see creative people dress them up. Of course there is only room for clever artists in this space and easy for kids making qr codes to get carried away.