GS1 QR Code Generator
A QR Code carrying GS1 data. It reads on a warehouse scanner and on a shopper’s phone, which is why it appears where one symbol has to serve both.
There are two ways to put GS1 data in a QR code and they behave very differently on a phone. A Digital Link is an ordinary web address, so a camera opens it. An element string is machine-readable only, and a phone shows unintelligible text. Decide which audience the code is for before you generate it.
- Retail packaging
- Consumer engagement
- Product authentication
- Point of sale
Preview
Enter content to generate GS1 QR Code
About GS1 QR Code
QR Code in GS1 format, used where a consumer-scannable code must also carry GS1 data.
A GS1 element string, e.g. (01)09501101530003(17)210531
What is GS1 QR Code?
A GS1 QR Code is an ordinary QR Code carrying a GS1 element string, marked by an FNC1 in the first position. It exists for the case where one symbol has to satisfy two audiences: a warehouse scanner that wants a GTIN and a batch number, and a shopper whose phone camera will read whatever is in front of it. Note that it is not the same thing as GS1 Digital Link, which encodes the identifiers inside a web address instead.
Technical characteristics
- Symbol
- QR Code, versions 1 to 40
- Error correction
- Four levels, L through H, trading capacity for damage tolerance
- Capacity
- Up to 4,296 alphanumeric or 7,089 numeric characters at the largest version
- Data syntax
- GS1 Application Identifiers, FNC1 in first position
- Quiet zone
- Four modules on each side
One code for the checkout and for the shopper
Packaging has been carrying two codes for years: a linear barcode the till reads, and increasingly a QR code pointing at a campaign page. They duplicate space, they are maintained by different teams, and neither knows about the other.
A GS1 QR code is the attempt to collapse them. The same symbol carries the product identifier a point-of-sale system needs and resolves, in a phone, to a web address the shopper can open. GS1 has stated an ambition for retailers to be able to accept two-dimensional codes at the till, and that transition is what these are for.
What makes a QR code a GS1 QR code
Nothing about the pattern. It is an ordinary QR symbol; what differs is the content and the declaration that the content follows GS1 rules, either as an element string introduced by FNC1 or as a GS1 Digital Link web address whose path segments carry the identifiers.
GS1 QR Code FAQs
Will a phone camera read a GS1 QR Code?
It will read the symbol, and will usually show the raw element string, brackets and identifiers and all, rather than anything friendly. If the goal is for a shopper to land on a web page, GS1 Digital Link is the format designed for that.
Is this the same as GS1 Digital Link?
No. Both carry GS1 identifiers in a QR Code, but a Digital Link encodes them as a URL such as https://id.gs1.org/01/09501101530003, so scanning it opens a page. A GS1 QR Code encodes the element string directly.
Can I use one code for both the warehouse and the customer?
That is the case GS1 QR is meant for. Whether it works depends on your scanning equipment being GS1-aware; plain camera apps will show the unformatted data.
Why does my scanner show the raw element string instead of tidy fields?
Because a plain QR reader is doing exactly its job: it decodes the characters and hands them over. Splitting (01) from (17) and knowing what each means is the job of a GS1-aware application on top. A phone camera showing you a run of brackets and digits is a correctly encoded symbol being read by software that was never asked to interpret it.