Bulk QR codes?

August 1, 2023 4:58 PM

I would like to get a unique QR code for each file in a folder on Google Drive. I would like to do this for free and with a minimum of hassle Searching gives me a million kinda crappy pay and "premium" versions, hopefully you are already using a great solution for this!
posted by Iteki to Technology (7 answers total)

Best answer: You can create QR codes in Google Sheets itself using the Google Charts API. That would work fine for a small number of files.

If you have more than a few files and are somewhat technical, you could easily write a Google Apps Script that will get the share URL for each file in the folder from the Google Drive API, make a QR code for it, and then output those into a spreadsheet or wherever else you want them. This would also be a very quick project for anyone who knows these tools, so could be hired out at minimal cost.
posted by ssg at 5:47 PM on August 1, 2023 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Exactly what I needed, thank you so much! (the Charts tutorial above).
posted by Iteki at 6:51 PM on August 1, 2023

Response by poster: Only problem with it is that the image doesn't seem to be generated so much as rendered, so it can't be copy-pasted out of there into for example a labelling software. Will come back if I work out a way to do it.
posted by Iteki at 6:58 PM on August 1, 2023

That's annoying. If you take the Charts API URL (https://chart.googleapis.com/chart?chs=300x300&cht=qr&chl="URL") and paste it into a browser window, you'll get the unadulterated image that you can copy and paste as usual. You could set up a cell to open that link in a new window directly from your sheet.
posted by ssg at 7:47 PM on August 1, 2023

FWIW, it is possible to use Apps Script to copy to the clipboard directly—never tried it with images, but theoretically it could work.
posted by staggernation at 8:17 PM on August 1, 2023

I have seen this answered elsewhere by telling chatgpt to write python and run code to make qr code for a list of websites.

https://whataido.com/how-to-generate-qr-code-using-chatgpt/

I have not tried it, and I keep tabs on the askme qr questions waiting for someone braver than me.
posted by MonsieurPEB at 9:12 PM on August 1, 2023

Response by poster: Using the =image function with the chart API but in Excel seems to at least give me copy-pastable images that can be used. The problem of course has solved itself by the fact that the brother ptouch software we want to use it with generates them on the fly from a database.
posted by Iteki at 10:07 AM on August 3, 2023