Forum Discussion

MikeTamoush's avatar
MikeTamoush
Qrew Commander
2 years ago

I've created a QR Code, now how to I print them all?

I've used techniques I found in the community to create a reach text field that shows an image of a QR Code. It looks perfect, every record has it's own unique QR code. Now I am stuck - how to I physically print these out? I was trying to figure out how to possibly use mail merge in word, so I could put them on say Avery labels? 

I know I could cheat by taking a screen shot, saving as an image, and printing, but that obviously isnt a real solution (I have 500+ to print). How have people gone about printing?



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Mike Tamoush
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13 Replies

    • MikeTamoush's avatar
      MikeTamoush
      Qrew Commander

      Thanks Mark. Unfortunately, the native solution is only for text. There are some resources to get an image, but the last 4 hours of trying for me have failed. I think the Juiced solution will also utilize text only, but I'll look into it! Thanks. Otherwise, I maybe have to go to a QR code site, import my URLS and use their native software to download everything as image files? Perhaps?

      Im still researching. Hopefully someone in the community has already figured this out!



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      Mike Tamoush
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      • TylerJablonski1's avatar
        TylerJablonski1
        Qrew Trainee

        I can think of at least one way to do this in native Quickbase, but it's extremely inconvenient.  Also on mobile right now, so I can't type out all of the formulas.

        In whatever table houses the QR codes, you can create another rich text formula field that just encompass the existing QR code field in a <td> tag.  We can call this [QR Container].

        Then you can have a formula query field that uses size() and getrecords() to find the number of QR code records with a record ID# less or equal to that record.  So Record ID# 1 will return 1, Record ID# 2 will return 2, etc.  I'll call this [Lower RIDs].

        Then you have another formula query field.  Let's say you want the printed copy to have 4 QR codes per row. If the [Lower RIDs] value is divisible by 4, it uses getfieldvalues() and getrecords() to collect the [QR Container] values of all records where [Lower RIDs] is greater than or equal to that record's [Lower RIDs] value minus three, but lower than or equal to that record's [Lower RIDs] number.  So RIDs 1-3 would return blank values (not divisible by 4), and RID 4 would return a list of the [QR Container] fields for RIDs 1 through 4.  You can use searchandreplace() on this value to replace " ; " with "", which will give you an HTML string.  You can then encompass this string in a <tr> tag.  We can call this field

        .

        Finally, you have a formula query field that gets the values of

        for every record where it isn't blank.  Then you use searchandreplace() on this field to replace " ; " with "".  This gives you another HTML string, which you encompass in a <table> tag.  We can call this
        .

        Then you add an Exact Form for the QR codes table that only includes "~fid~", where fid is the field id# of your

        field.  This will give you a button on every record that when clicked, will give you a big Exact Form with a table of all of your QR codes that you can print.  I have done similar things to this in the past, and I know that rich text fields will render properly in the Exact Form (including images like your QR codes).

        Just writing this out, I'm sure it's terrible performance wise.  There are definitely ways to optimize this by say, only having your fields make a table of the previous 100 records.  So if you click on the button on your most recent record, you'll get your 100 most recently generated QR codes, but you won't be pulling together as much data as many times.  Or maybe you only populate

        on the 5 most recent records, and if it's older than that it just returns a blank value.

        Realistically, the easiest way to do this is with a code page, but that comes with its own set of headaches.  And if you're not already comfortable writing JS code, it really isn't worth learning it just for Quickbase. They offer so many great no code tools that are easier and faster for 99% of use cases, that the time spent learning wouldn't justify itself for the limited number of times you'd use it.  If this functionality is really important I'd recommend just going with the tedious native QB solution.



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        Tyler Jablonski
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  • Mike,

    One of the issues I had with QR codes from Quickbase is that the URL is often super long, which means that the QR code has to be relatively large on the paper to fit all the information in a way that the camera can read it (forget a 150x150 code - too small!). I figured out how to use the API with TinyURL to get a much shorter URL for the long Quickbase ones, which lets me print smaller QR codes. TinyURL's free plan lets you do 600 URLs per month and their paid plans don't cost that much.

    If you need to shrink the size of your URLs, let me know and I can walk you through the TinyURL API.



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    Edward Hefter
    www.Sutubra.com
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    • KeithJusas's avatar
      KeithJusas
      Qrew Captain

      Nice tip Edward!



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      Keith Jusas
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      • MikeTamoush's avatar
        MikeTamoush
        Qrew Commander

        Hi Edward, 

        I know this thread is a bit old, but wondering if you were still available to walk me through how to use tiny URL api to shorten the link?

        Thanks.



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        Mike Tamoush
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