Hello,

I am trying to represent Vcard information using a QR Code in Planet Press Design.

Following is the sample VCard data

BEGIN:VCARD
VERSION:3.0
N:Gump;Forrest
FN:Forrest Gump
ORG:Bubba Gump Shrimp Co.
TITLE:Shrimp Man
PHOTO;VALUE=URL;TYPE=GIF:http://www.example.com/dir_photos/my_photo.gif
TEL;TYPE=WORK,VOICE:(111) 555-1212
TEL;TYPE=HOME,VOICE:(404) 555-1212
ADR;TYPE=WORK:;;100 Waters Edge;Baytown;LA;30314;United States of America
LABEL;TYPE=WORK:100 Waters EdgeBaytown, LA 30314 United States of America
ADR;TYPE=HOME:;;42 Plantation St.;Baytown;LA;30314;United States of America
LABEL;TYPE=HOME:42 Plantation St.Baytown, LA 30314 United States of America
EMAIL;TYPE=PREF,INTERNET:forrestgump@example.com
REV:20080424T195243Z
END:VCARD

The above vcard data is being used from a sample data file in ascii emulation.

I get the following error when in the data properties of the QR code I check custom data selection and then select the entire contents of the vcard (as above).

0 - 13:45:39 PTK0197 : Barcode error: Illegal character in code. Warning

I figured that there are charachters like - ; ( ) = @ that are triggering the illegal character error. Is there a way to escape these characters or handle them in some way so that the error is eliminated? or am I doing this the wrong way?

Thanks

cube,

Our QR Code currently supports the numeric, alphanumeric and kanji encodings, but does not include the Binary includes, which is required for characters like the ones you mentionned. Alphanumeric supports letters and numbers, but not other symbols.

You could always use stringreplace to take out the invalid characters, but in the case of email addresses, you'll end up losing information, so this may not be a solution. Unfortunately, I don't think there really is anything we can do about this, since Binary encoding support is not included.

Regards,
Raphaël Lalonde Lefebvre

Hi Raphaël,

Thanks for the information. I understand the limitation.

Is it possible to accomplish the vcard QR Code in Print Shop Mail? I mean does Print Shop mail support binary encoding?

Regards

One possibility is to go to this website Barcode writer and use the code there to generate your barcode.

I mention this just in case you want to try it - it is not straightforward. Running the postscript barcode functions from Planet press is not easy but it can be done.

The QRcode generator appears to support all the characters in your example, and its printer based.

Hi
Can anyone confirm whether Print Shop Mail 7 does or does not support binary encoding for QR Codes? I have a client that wants to set up pURL's but the code would require the use of = and ? which will not work in Planet Press.
Regards
John

Hi John,

I just tried putting the following in an expression for a QR Code in PrintShop Mail 7.1. It generates the correct QR code which 2 different apps on my Android phone (Barcode Reader and QR Droid) can read without a hitch. This is a MECARD, not a VCARD, but the supported characters are essentially the same so there shouldn't be a problem.



Since QR Codes are becoming increasingly popular, I'll make sure that a feature request has been entered for future versions of PlanetPress.

I have found http://orangeqr.com to be exceptional for creating over 7 different kinds of QR codes and being able to track them.

Please note that in PlanetPress Design 7.3 (which will come out soon), QR codes will now accept 3 new characters: the semicolon (;), the comma (,) and the at sign (@). With these three new characters, the issue in this thread should be resolved.

What about the characters necessary for a URL?

Hi Thomas,

Actually the characters that make up a URL were already previously supported. That includes the colon (:), forward slash (/), question mark (?), percent sign(%), etc.

The following URL works perfectly well in the QR Code (at least in 7.3, but I'm fairly certain in any version of 7):
http://www.google.com/#sclient=psy&hl=en&site=&source=hp&q=Test&pbx=1&oq=Test&aq=f&aqi=g5&aql=1&gs_sm=e&gs_upl=1624l1884l0l2279l4l3l0l0l0l0l177l414l1.2l3l0&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_cp.&fp=fde523c3cbd82b69&biw=1280&bih=836

I have tested the below vcard in version 7.3, however when I select all the content of the vcard from the data pane, right click, drag and drop, select barcode, then change the properties of the barcode to QR ; barcode mode : Alpha, it only shows QR code for the first line and ignores the rest, I have tried this with ascii and line printer emulations, with the same result i.e. it takes only the first line of the vcard from the data pane.

Any ideas?

Thanks!

BEGIN:VCARD
VERSION:3.0
N:Gump;Forrest
FN:Forrest Gump
ORG:Bubba Gump Shrimp Co.
TITLE:Shrimp Man
PHOTO;VALUE=URL;TYPE=GIF:http://www.example.com/dir_photos/my_photo.gif
TEL;TYPE=WORK,VOICE:(111) 555-1212
TEL;TYPE=HOME,VOICE:(404) 555-1212
ADR;TYPE=WORK:;;100 Waters Edge;Baytown;LA;30314;United States of America
LABEL;TYPE=WORK:100 Waters EdgeBaytown, LA 30314 United States of America
ADR;TYPE=HOME:;;42 Plantation St.;Baytown;LA;30314;United States of America
LABEL;TYPE=HOME:42 Plantation St.Baytown, LA 30314 United States of America
EMAIL;TYPE=PREF,INTERNET:forrestgump@example.com
REV:20080424T195243Z
END:VCARD

Hi Cube,

I'm not exactly sure why that would be. I'm able to reproduce your issue, but with the added issue that I need to put the barcode mode to "Full", or the ; causes an 'illegal character' message to appear.

What you can do as a workaround is to check "Custom Data Selection" and then put in a series of data selections - one line of string for each of the lines you want to add to the code. It's a little longer to setup, but once it's done there should be no difference in the end result. Just hit "Enter" at the end of the line to create a new one, in the Custom data selection box.

Hi Eric,

Thanks for your response. I have tried the 'Custom data selection' method and am able to generate the QR code. However, when read by a QR reader from my iphone, it does not recognize the data read as vaid vCard format.

Upon visually inspecting the data read by the QR reader, I see that there are no CR/LF at the end of each line which is causing the vcard to be become invalid. Upon reading further wrt to Vcard format, the CR/LF at the end of each line are a part of the vcard standard and are necessary.

Is there a way to automatically add line feeds at the end of each vcard line?

Hi cube,

You're correct. It's odd, I was sure it was possible to read these QR Codes automatically, I guess I was wrong.

In any case, if you add "char(10)" at the end of each line that will add an LF, which should be sufficient (it is for the QR Droid application on my smartphone anyway). If not, char(15) is CR.

Example:

Hi Eric,

Great!, why didn't I think of that!. Thanks for the workaround.

I guess this would be fixed in the next planet press release.

Thanks again.