Jump to content

Recommended Posts

Posted
2 hours ago, fde101 said:

That has too many "digits" - should only be seven.

But that doesn't matter to a phone when calling, and many businesses use "numbers" like that.

-- Walt
Designer, Photo, and Publisher V1 and V2 at latest retail and beta releases
PC:
    Desktop:  Windows 11 Pro 23H2, 64GB memory, AMD Ryzen 9 5900 12-Core @ 3.00 GHz, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 

    Laptop:  Windows 11 Pro 23H2, 32GB memory, Intel Core i7-10750H @ 2.60GHz, Intel UHD Graphics Comet Lake GT2 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU.
    Laptop 2: Windows 11 Pro 24H2,  16GB memory, Snapdragon(R) X Elite - X1E80100 - Qualcomm(R) Oryon(TM) 12 Core CPU 4.01 GHz, Qualcomm(R) Adreno(TM) X1-85 GPU
iPad:  iPad Pro M1, 12.9": iPadOS 18.3, Apple Pencil 2, Magic Keyboard 
Mac:  2023 M2 MacBook Air 15", 16GB memory, macOS Sequoia 15.0.1

Posted
3 hours ago, Tim France said:

There is no standardised format for phone numbers...

Is it possible to divide the telephone number in 3 parts:

Country code: +389 (Macedonia)
Provider's code: 75 (Telekom)
Tel. number: 123-456

All the latest releases of Designer, Photo and Publisher (retail and beta) on MacOS and Windows.
15” Dell Inspiron 7559 i7 Windows 10 x64 Pro Intel Core i7-6700HQ (3.50 GHz, 6M) 16 GB Dual Channel DDR3L 1600 MHz (8GBx2) NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960M 4 GB GDDR5 500 GB SSD + 1 TB HDD UHD (3840 x 2160) Truelife LED - Backlit Touch Display
32” LG 32UN650-W display 3840 x 2160 UHD, IPS, HDR10 Color Gamut: DCI-P3 95%, Color Calibrated 2 x HDMI, 1 x DisplayPort
13.3” MacBook Pro (2017) Ventura 13.6 Intel Core i7 (3.50 GHz Dual Core) 16 GB 2133 MHz LPDDR3 Intel Iris Plus Graphics 650 1536 MB 500 GB SSD Retina Display (3360 x 2100)

Posted
14 minutes ago, Petar Petrenko said:

Is it possible to divide the telephone number in 3 parts:

Country code: +389 (Macedonia)
Provider's code: 75 (Telekom)
Tel. number: 123-456

That second one makes no sense for US numbers, and likely for some other countries, too. We have "Area Code", for example.

-- Walt
Designer, Photo, and Publisher V1 and V2 at latest retail and beta releases
PC:
    Desktop:  Windows 11 Pro 23H2, 64GB memory, AMD Ryzen 9 5900 12-Core @ 3.00 GHz, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 

    Laptop:  Windows 11 Pro 23H2, 32GB memory, Intel Core i7-10750H @ 2.60GHz, Intel UHD Graphics Comet Lake GT2 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU.
    Laptop 2: Windows 11 Pro 24H2,  16GB memory, Snapdragon(R) X Elite - X1E80100 - Qualcomm(R) Oryon(TM) 12 Core CPU 4.01 GHz, Qualcomm(R) Adreno(TM) X1-85 GPU
iPad:  iPad Pro M1, 12.9": iPadOS 18.3, Apple Pencil 2, Magic Keyboard 
Mac:  2023 M2 MacBook Air 15", 16GB memory, macOS Sequoia 15.0.1

Posted
4 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

That second one makes no sense for US numbers, and likely for some other countries, too. We have "Area Code", for example.

OK. It can be Area Code or Area/Provider Code... whatever.

All the latest releases of Designer, Photo and Publisher (retail and beta) on MacOS and Windows.
15” Dell Inspiron 7559 i7 Windows 10 x64 Pro Intel Core i7-6700HQ (3.50 GHz, 6M) 16 GB Dual Channel DDR3L 1600 MHz (8GBx2) NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960M 4 GB GDDR5 500 GB SSD + 1 TB HDD UHD (3840 x 2160) Truelife LED - Backlit Touch Display
32” LG 32UN650-W display 3840 x 2160 UHD, IPS, HDR10 Color Gamut: DCI-P3 95%, Color Calibrated 2 x HDMI, 1 x DisplayPort
13.3” MacBook Pro (2017) Ventura 13.6 Intel Core i7 (3.50 GHz Dual Core) 16 GB 2133 MHz LPDDR3 Intel Iris Plus Graphics 650 1536 MB 500 GB SSD Retina Display (3360 x 2100)

  • Staff
Posted
13 hours ago, Hangman said:

Possible Bug...

I fully appreciate it's perhaps not practical to include every available vCard option in a preset (though it would be great if the preset option included an option to add additional fields via a '+' button so we could add additional phone, email, URL fields etc., then save our own presets but...

Entering more involved vCard data than provided using the vCard preset via the Text field fails to recognise Paragraph Separators U+2029 used to separate each field when copying and pasting vCard data from Affinity apps on Windows, i.e., copying and pasting vCard Data with fields separated via a Paragraph Return from Affinity apps the U+2029 Paragraph Separator are not recognised when pasted into the QR Code Text Preset resulting in having to use the Backspace followed by the Return Key for the U+2029 Paragraph Separators to be recognised.

Pasting the data into the Text field of the Text preset results in a QR Code displaying a 'No usable data found' error message...

When copying and pasting the same vCard Data directly from a Word Document the U+2029 Paragraph Separators are correctly recognised by the QR Code Text Preset resulting in a recognisable vCard QR Code...

I'm slightly baffled as to why at the moment...

Yeah... vCards are loads of fun. The vCard "spec" (it's kind of standardised in a few RFCs) states that fields are terminated with CRLF. Not LF, not paragraph separators, but "\r\n". Multiline fields (e.g. notes) must use slash n (i.e. "\\n") to escape their new lines. An earlier iteration of this editor only had a single multiline text field and I actually replaced paragraph breaks with CRLF in it, but then there's every possibility that someone will say "no no no! Don't do that! I deliberately wanted paragraph breaks in my Text data!". Here's the kicker - some versions of Android's scanner will accept some exotic unicode breaks instead of CRLF! But the iPhone I tested that on flat out rejects it.

TL;DR I thought automatically replacing paragraph breaks with \r\n was a good idea but it breaks functionality for other cases.

Posted

Hi @Tim France,

I figured out the issue in the end...

I had 'Preserve unicode breaks when copying plain text' enabled in the General Settings which meant that when copying e.g., this from Affinity Publisher into the QR Code Text field, it fails. Copy the same text into a Word Document then copy and paste from there and it works...

BEGIN:VCARD
VERSION:4.0
N:Gump;Forrest;;Mr.;
FN:Sheri Nom
ORG:Sheri Nom Co.
TITLE:Ultimate Warrior
PHOTO;MEDIATYPE#image/gif:http://www.sherinnom.com/dir_photos/my_photo.gif
TEL;Mobile;VALUE#uri:+1-111-555-3456
TEL;Work;VALUE#uri:+1-111-555-1212
TEL;Home;VALUE#uri:+1-404-555-1212
ADR;Work;PREF#1;LABEL#"Normality\nBaytown\, LA 50514\nUnited States of America":;;100 Waters Edge;Baytown;LA;50514;United States of America
ADR;Home;LABEL#"42 Plantation St.\nBaytown\, LA 30314\nUnited States of America":;;42 Plantation St.;Baytown;LA;30314;United States of America
EMAIL:sherinnom@example.com
BDAY:2000-02-28
END:VCARD

That's when I realised that disabling 'Preserve unicode breaks when copying plain text' solves the problem though I'm unsure whether that is what is expected.

Affinity Designer 2.5.7 | Affinity Photo 2.5.7 | Affinity Publisher 2.5.7
Affinity Designer Beta 2.6.0.3106 | Affinity Photo Beta 2.6.0.3106 | Affinity Publisher Beta 2.6.0.3106

MacBook Pro M3 Max, 36 GB Unified Memory, macOS Sonoma 14.6.1, Magic Mouse
HP ENVY x360, 8 GB RAM, AMD Ryzen 5 2500U, Windows 10 Home, Logitech Mouse

Posted

I have no expertise in QR codes, but have clients who can use them from time to time. The ones we have "outsourced" have all had the client's logo embedded into the center.  While a post in this thread suggested just dropping a logo somewhere on top of a code generated with these apps, I would like to vote for a mechanism to place a logo there that is compliant with whatever rules need to be followed (obviously, not blocking key parts of the code!). Really would be preferable to having to learn a bunch of QR rules when we only do these on a limited basis. If it were easier to accomplish (a benefit of this new feature), we certainly could be doing more. 

--------------------

New: 2023 Mac Studio M2 MAX 12-Core CPU/38-Core GPU 64GB Memory • 5k Studio Display • Sonoma
Prev: 2020 iMac 27 i7 (5k Rez), 72GB, AMD Radeon Pro 5700XT 16GB • Sonoma
MacBook Pro, 13", M1 2020 • 16 GB • macOS Sonoma
iPad Air 2022

Posted
17 minutes ago, nwhit said:

I have no expertise in QR codes, but have clients who can use them from time to time. The ones we have "outsourced" have all had the client's logo embedded into the center.  While a post in this thread suggested just dropping a logo somewhere on top of a code generated with these apps, I would like to vote for a mechanism to place a logo there that is compliant with whatever rules need to be followed (obviously, not blocking key parts of the code!). Really would be preferable to having to learn a bunch of QR rules when we only do these on a limited basis. If it were easier to accomplish (a benefit of this new feature), we certainly could be doing more. 

I'd personally like to see the option to control intelligent 'Error Correction' with options not applicable to the generated QR Code greyed out but with the ability to apply differing levels of 'Error Correction' appropriate to the circumstances under which the QR Code will be displayed...

As previously mentioned in the thread the addition of a user-definable 'Quiet Zone' Border setting (already supported by the code library) would greatly enhance the tool and intelligent logo incorporation based on the 'Error Correction' level would certainly be welcome, more so when the addition of personalised QR Code generation via Data Merge comes to fruition which would have huge potential from a marketing standpoint...

I would also love to see Serif adopt Canva's customizable dynamic QR code solution to provide next-level marketing opportunities directly within Affinity apps despite Canva currently using a different QR Code library to Serif...

Affinity Designer 2.5.7 | Affinity Photo 2.5.7 | Affinity Publisher 2.5.7
Affinity Designer Beta 2.6.0.3106 | Affinity Photo Beta 2.6.0.3106 | Affinity Publisher Beta 2.6.0.3106

MacBook Pro M3 Max, 36 GB Unified Memory, macOS Sonoma 14.6.1, Magic Mouse
HP ENVY x360, 8 GB RAM, AMD Ryzen 5 2500U, Windows 10 Home, Logitech Mouse

Posted

Downloaded beta. Can't find QR code generator. Help please. 

Affinity Suite v2.5, Mac Mini M2 Pro 2023, Sonoma, OS 14.1.1

Posted
6 minutes ago, kat said:

Downloaded beta. Can't find QR code generator. Help please. 

should be on the left side tool bar, if it's not seen, it's likely part of a tool group and would require clicking on one of the tool groups with the small white triangle in the bottom right of the icon, else customise the toolbar to show it outside of the tool groups.

iMac 27" 2019 Sequoia 15.0 (24A335), iMac 27" Affinity Designer, Photo & Publisher V1 & V2, Adobe, Inkscape, Vectorstyler, Blender, C4D, Sketchup + more... XP-Pen Artist-22E, - iPad Pro 12.9  
B| (Please refrain from licking the screen while using this forum)

Affinity Help - Affinity Desktop Tutorials - Feedback - FAQ - most asked questions

Posted
7 minutes ago, kat said:

Downloaded beta. Can't find QR code generator. Help please. 

Per the original post to this thread:

On 4/12/2024 at 1:54 PM, Ash said:

Apps: All
Platforms: macOS, Windows and iPad

A new QR Code tool is now available from the shapes flyout in the toolbar, making it easy to add a QR code to your documents. 

After creating or selecting a QR Code object you will find a 'Payload' option in the context toolbar. Here you can type whatever URL you want the QR code to link to when it is scanned.

image.png

image.png

You can insert line breaks in your payload by using the CMD/CTRL + Click on canvas dialog

image.png

In addition to URLs you can use other syntax as detailed below to have the QR code trigger other functions when scanned by a device:

SMS

Payload structure: SMSTO:number:text message
Eg. SMSTO:07513123456:Hello mate!

GEO location

Payload structure: GEO:lat:lon:height
Eg. GEO:40.71872,-73.98905,100

WIFI credentials

Payload structure: WIFI:S:ssid;T:type;P:password;;
Eg. WIFI:S:MyWiFiSSID;T:WPA;P:MyPassW0rd;;

 

As the latest addition, it’s at the bottom of the list (after the Spiral Tool).

Alfred spacer.png
Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for Windows • Windows 10 Home/Pro
Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for iPad • iPadOS 17.5.1 (iPad 7th gen)

  • Staff
Posted
13 hours ago, nwhit said:

I have no expertise in QR codes, but have clients who can use them from time to time. The ones we have "outsourced" have all had the client's logo embedded into the center.  While a post in this thread suggested just dropping a logo somewhere on top of a code generated with these apps, I would like to vote for a mechanism to place a logo there that is compliant with whatever rules need to be followed (obviously, not blocking key parts of the code!). Really would be preferable to having to learn a bunch of QR rules when we only do these on a limited basis. If it were easier to accomplish (a benefit of this new feature), we certainly could be doing more. 

As far as I'm aware, we will not be adding the logo "feature". This is not something that is part of the QR code spec, and having a valid QR code with a logo in the middle simply relies on the error correction to account for the "covered" pixels. I think a middle ground would be to expose the error correction levels and let those who want a logo experiment with its size and error correction levels until they find settings that work for them. 

Posted
25 minutes ago, Gabe said:

I think a middle ground would be to expose the error correction levels and let those who want a logo experiment with its size and error correction levels until they find settings that work for them. 

Hi @Gabe,

Could I also request that the 'Quiet Zone' is also exposed to allow users to specify a value for 'Border Modules'? This would be a big help...

Affinity Designer 2.5.7 | Affinity Photo 2.5.7 | Affinity Publisher 2.5.7
Affinity Designer Beta 2.6.0.3106 | Affinity Photo Beta 2.6.0.3106 | Affinity Publisher Beta 2.6.0.3106

MacBook Pro M3 Max, 36 GB Unified Memory, macOS Sonoma 14.6.1, Magic Mouse
HP ENVY x360, 8 GB RAM, AMD Ryzen 5 2500U, Windows 10 Home, Logitech Mouse

  • Staff
Posted

Hi @Hangman

34 minutes ago, Hangman said:

Could I also request that the 'Quiet Zone' is also exposed to allow users to specify a value for 'Border Modules'? This would be a big help...

The same effect can be achieved by reducing the size of the QR - is it that it could be specified in modules that you like?

Posted
18 minutes ago, Tim France said:

The same effect can be achieved by reducing the size of the QR - is it that it could be specified in modules that you like?

The QR Code Generator Library provides a 'Border Option' module setting which allows you to specify a 'Quiet Zone' around the QR Code required for effective scanning when placed in a 'busy' environment, i.e., surrounded by text in a magazine.

This automatically adds a user-definable 'border' specified in modules (though the value itself doesn't have to be modules, px or pt achieves the same thing) to the QR Code on generation. While 'yes', we can of course scale the QR Code and add a Rectangle on another layer and then group the two, it's perhaps not as neat and seems like an unnecessary step when the feature exists in the library itself.

Reducing the size of the QR code doesn't achieve the same thing in as much as you just have a smaller QR code with no border so you still have to add one manually...

It's not the end of the world, it just simplifies the QR Code creation process slightly and it seems a shame not to make use of it when it's a feature of the library.

Affinity Designer 2.5.7 | Affinity Photo 2.5.7 | Affinity Publisher 2.5.7
Affinity Designer Beta 2.6.0.3106 | Affinity Photo Beta 2.6.0.3106 | Affinity Publisher Beta 2.6.0.3106

MacBook Pro M3 Max, 36 GB Unified Memory, macOS Sonoma 14.6.1, Magic Mouse
HP ENVY x360, 8 GB RAM, AMD Ryzen 5 2500U, Windows 10 Home, Logitech Mouse

Posted

Hi @Tim France,

I was also going to ask whether there is a reason for not providing a vCalendar preset. Is that because the format isn't directly supported by Android (though there are options to get around that)... or would you consider adding that as an additional preset? It's quite a handy one to have when sending invites to events, save the date etc., via email though I realise these can again be added using the Text preset, not everyone is going to want or understand how to do so effectively, hence the idea of presets...

Affinity Designer 2.5.7 | Affinity Photo 2.5.7 | Affinity Publisher 2.5.7
Affinity Designer Beta 2.6.0.3106 | Affinity Photo Beta 2.6.0.3106 | Affinity Publisher Beta 2.6.0.3106

MacBook Pro M3 Max, 36 GB Unified Memory, macOS Sonoma 14.6.1, Magic Mouse
HP ENVY x360, 8 GB RAM, AMD Ryzen 5 2500U, Windows 10 Home, Logitech Mouse

Posted
7 hours ago, Gabe said:

As far as I'm aware, we will not be adding the logo "feature". This is not something that is part of the QR code spec, and having a valid QR code with a logo in the middle simply relies on the error correction to account for the "covered" pixels. I think a middle ground would be to expose the error correction levels and let those who want a logo experiment with its size and error correction levels until they find settings that work for them. 

I think that is a sensible approach. I am afraid you are stuck in an awkward position on this, because most users are not aware that adding the logo is essentially a hack, and instead they will think it is a limitation in Affinity. I am a fairly technical person, programmer and all, but I wasn’t aware until this discussion that adding those logos was an out-of-spec approach that merely relies on error correction. Probably most people have no idea: they see some tools that allow it, and they assume it must be a legitimate option. Now that I know that it is just something that works even though it wasn’t intended, I would be hesitant to try it, because I would never know whether I added enough error correction.

Posted

What is error correction? Quiet zone is just a bit of space around the QR code, correct?

Affinity Suite v2.5, Mac Mini M2 Pro 2023, Sonoma, OS 14.1.1

Posted
4 minutes ago, kat said:

What is error correction?

I'm quoting here...

"In QR Codes, error correction is handled by the Reed-Solomon Error Correction algorithm. Every time a QR Code is created, the original data is converted into a polynomial, the number of unique points required to define that polynomial uniquely is determined, and this point set is added back into the QR Code so that it then also contains the original data expressed as a polynomial.

Long story short - the Reed-Solomon algorithm leaves data that enables QR Code scanners to rebuild the entire QR Code, even if a part of it is damaged or missing. You can also say that the QR Code data is “mathematically backed up."

To put it simply...

"There are four levels of error correction to choose from, depending on the damage you expect your QR Code to sustain.

  • Level L: 7% of data can be restored
  • Level M: 15% of data can be restored
  • Level Q: 25% of data can be restored
  • Level H: 30% of data can be restored

While having as much error correction as possible is ideal, higher levels require more modules*. As we have seen, larger module configurations require a larger area/QR Code size for better scannability. If there are severe size constraints, choosing Level L, where only 7% of the data is retrievable, is ideal."

*a module is each individual square that makes up the complete QR Code, the more complex the information contained, the more modules required in the QR Code..

11 minutes ago, kat said:

Quiet zone is just a bit of space around the QR code, correct?

Correct, as a general rule of thumb this should be 4 times the size of the smallest module on each side of the QR Code...

Affinity Designer 2.5.7 | Affinity Photo 2.5.7 | Affinity Publisher 2.5.7
Affinity Designer Beta 2.6.0.3106 | Affinity Photo Beta 2.6.0.3106 | Affinity Publisher Beta 2.6.0.3106

MacBook Pro M3 Max, 36 GB Unified Memory, macOS Sonoma 14.6.1, Magic Mouse
HP ENVY x360, 8 GB RAM, AMD Ryzen 5 2500U, Windows 10 Home, Logitech Mouse

Posted

@Hangman

I'm doing an 8 x 10.5 in newsletter. What size should my QRs be and how much quiet zone?

Affinity Suite v2.5, Mac Mini M2 Pro 2023, Sonoma, OS 14.1.1

Posted

Hi @kat,

5 minutes ago, kat said:

I'm doing an 8 x 10.5 in newsletter. What size should my QRs be and how much quiet zone?

Hopefully, this will help...

https://tritonstore.com.au/qr-code-size/

Affinity Designer 2.5.7 | Affinity Photo 2.5.7 | Affinity Publisher 2.5.7
Affinity Designer Beta 2.6.0.3106 | Affinity Photo Beta 2.6.0.3106 | Affinity Publisher Beta 2.6.0.3106

MacBook Pro M3 Max, 36 GB Unified Memory, macOS Sonoma 14.6.1, Magic Mouse
HP ENVY x360, 8 GB RAM, AMD Ryzen 5 2500U, Windows 10 Home, Logitech Mouse

Posted
1 hour ago, Hangman said:

Hi @kat,

Hopefully, this will help...

https://tritonstore.com.au/qr-code-size/

How Small Can a QR Code be Printed and Still Work?

The best QR code print size, excluding the quiet zone, is 2 cm by 2 cm (0.8 inches by 0.8 inches).

However, a QR code can still be scannable even if it is smaller than the ideal size, provided that the scanning distance (QR code distance from the scanning device) is less than 5 centimetres (1.97 inches). QRs printed on business cards, visiting cards, tickets, and other forms of paper media are great examples of small-sized QR codes.

What is The Ideal Size of a Digital QR Code?

Digital QR codes work best when sized at least 240 by 240 pixels (6.35 cm by 6.35 cm) with a minimum of 72 DPI (dots per inch) resolution.

 

How Much White Space do You Need Around QR Codes? / How Much Margin Should I Keep Around a QR Code? / What is an Ideal "Quite Zone"?

The size of a “quiet zone” depends on the size of your QR code. To achieve maximum scannability success, ensure the QR code is surrounded by a “quiet zone” of around 15% of the entire QR code dimension.

For example, if the QR code dimensions are 20 cm by 20 cm (7.87 inches by 7.87 inches), then the quiet zone should be at least 3 cm (1.18 inches) on all four sides.

Affinity Suite v2.5, Mac Mini M2 Pro 2023, Sonoma, OS 14.1.1

Posted
7 hours ago, garrettm30 said:

Now that I know that it is just something that works even though it wasn’t intended, I would be hesitant to try it, because I would never know whether I added enough error correction.

This is one of the benefits of having the tool add the logo for you.

Back toward the beginning of this thread, I showed screenshots from iQR, an app I have from the Mac App Store to generate QR codes.

That app has a built-in validator, that given the resolution of the QR code, actually "scans" the generated code internally to make sure it will read cleanly with the specified settings.  Because it adds the logo itself, it can account for that when validating - the final result with the logo on top is validated by the program and it gives you an indicator (the green checkmark along the bottom) telling you that it will scan well - or warns you with a different indicator when it is marginal or when it will not.

It can also adjust the error correction automatically based on this result, increasing it when possible with the resolution specified, where doing so will make the code read cleanly when otherwise it might not.

The Affinity apps could take a similar approach to validate the resulting QR code that is being generated, but if the logo is not accounted for by the app, then the validation would not take it into account.

I would suggest that as this is a shape, the logo could be specified simply by making it a child layer of the QR code itself.  The child layers would draw on top of it just like any other child layers, and if they are included in a render of the QR code which is run through a validator, it could be performing that test on behalf of the user.

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

Terms of Use | Privacy Policy | Guidelines | We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue.