Introduction

At Polytag you will hear us talking a lot about GS1 standards. Everything we have built is fully compliant to GS1 standards to ensure the QR codes we supply you are fully interoperable, globally, across all systems. It is also to ensure your labels are future proofed, so that when QR codes eventually replace 1D stripy barcodes on pack to be scanned at Point-of-Sale, you will be already be fully prepared, and won't need to make any future changes to your labels.

To enable this it's important the QR codes are generated and printed correctly. If you are going to print Polytag QR codes (GTIN only) you can download SVG (vector) files directly from our platform to be added to your artwork (see this article). You'll just need to ensure they adhere to the GS1 standards outlined below. If you are going to print Polytag unique-every-time QR codes (GTIN + serialised code) you'll need to ensure that your printing partner is generating and printing the QR codes adhering to GS1 standards.

Polytag QR codes

The URL that sits behind Polytag QR codes will always be 32 characters long (for example

https://tgz.bz/01/05060919080055). This means that the QR codes will need to be a

version 2 (25x25 modules) with an error correction rate of L or M. QR codes have an X-dimension, which is the width in mm of each module (individual pixel). To be compliant with GS1 standards the X-dimension must be 0.396mm as a minimum. This means that the minimum width and height the QR code must be is 9.9mm x 9.9mm. There also needs to be a quiet zone around the QR code, which is a blank (empty) margin around it 4 modules wide. So the total minimum space needed to be allocated on the label is 13.068mm x 13.068mm. GS1 have a handy demo tool where you can explore this by plugging in the URL and tweaking the settings.

To summarise, make the QR code at least 10mm x 10mm, and allow an empty margin around it that is at least 3mm thick, so the total space on pack required will be 13mm x 13mm (as a minimum). We've rounded the numbers as we appreciate it may be difficult to specify fractions of millimeters when printing!

Unique-every-time QR codes

The URL that sits behind Polytag unique-every-time QR codes will always be 50 characters long (for example https://tgz.bz/01/05060919080055/21/HVRKP-MZZT2ZN1). This means that the QR codes will need to be a version 3 (29x29 modules) with an error correction rate of L or M. Per GS1 standards the minimum X-dimension doesn't change regardless of which QR version is used, so in this case the minimum width and height of the QR code must be 11.484mm x 11.484mm (0.396mm multiplied by 29 modules). To allow for the quiet zone, the total minimum space allocated on the label must be 14.652mm x 14.652mm.

To summarise, make the QR code at least 12mm x 12mm, and allow an empty margin around it that is at least 3mm thick, so the total space on pack required will be 15mm x 15mm (as a minimum). We've rounded the numbers as we appreciate it may be difficult to specify fractions of millimeters when printing!

Notes and further reading The X-dimension can be bigger than the minimum specified above , up to 0.99mm. Although some of the dimensions specified by GS1 may seem pedantic, they are set to ensure optimal scan ability of QR codes, particularly for when they are scanned at tills!

Ensure there is good contrast in colours between the pixels in the QR code (e.g. many QR codes you will see are black and white - it is the pixels that are black, on a white background). And ensure the colour of the quiet zone border is the same colour as that of the background of the QR code. This is again to ensure they scan flawlessly.

You can use this free tool to check what size a GS1 compliant Digital Link QR code needs to be based on the URL. https://mgh128.github.io/moduleCount/

(you can either build up the Digital Link URL yourself, or paste one in that you already have).

For further information on QR code versions and data encoding, you can check out this resource.