How to test a QR code before printing

Screen previews hide problems. Scan the actual designed file from two different phones, ideally one iPhone and one Android, using the built-in camera app.

A code can scan perfectly and still land somewhere broken. Confirm the redirect resolves, loads fast and looks right on a phone before you print thousands.

Two phones in a bright office is the floor, not the ceiling. The people who scan your code are holding older devices, in worse light, in more of a hurry.

If the code is going on packaging sold in several countries, ask somebody in each market to scan it, or use a VPN. A rule that routes German visitors to a German page cannot be verified from anywhere else.

The scan is only half the journey. Load the destination on a mid-range phone over mobile data and watch what happens between the scan and the content.

It is almost always contrast, size or surface. A dark code on dark material, a glossy finish catching a light, a quiet zone trimmed to fit a layout: each scans fine on a bright monitor and fails where it was printed for.

Raise the error correction level, leave the quiet zone alone, and if the code has to be small, make the contrast as strong as the design allows.