How to format that WiFi QR code in plain text
Something I ran into yesterday is I’ve got a QR code generating label printer and needed the text to put into it for a WiFi quick connect QR code. Well, there’re a ton of places that will generate a quick connect WiFi code for you, and you can easily get a QR code these days straight from your Android phone, but I needed the actual string because trying to get a JPEG on this thermal handheld label printer is a pain. Here’s how to generate a qr code in plain text.
TL;DR (months later,) – the text is: WIFI colon S colon SSIDNAME semicolon T colon WPA semicolon P colon PASSWORD semicolon semicolon. Also updated link to vCard below.
Side note – every QR code generating website that keeps contacting me: this is how to do without your service for purposes of creating something manually in like, a label maker. I am not linking to you. I know you want SEO juju from this article, but when I link to places that auto generate it, this defeats the purpose.
I’m playing with a Niimbot D11 at the moment in case you’re wondering, I don’t see an option to scan a code and generate one. I may be missing something.
The actual text is as follows:
WIFI:S:<SSID>;T:<WEP|WPA|blank>;P:<PASSWORD>;H:<true|false|blank>;;Should be noted you don’t appear to need the H:, and the greater and less than symbols are there to show you need to put something there.
An example I have is if you have an SSID named “pocketables” and a password of “let there be cake” the following works as text for a QR generator:
WIFI:S:pocketables;T:WPA;P:let there be cake;;The unused H and operand there appears to deal with hidden networks, which I guess have to be force joined. You need the trailing double semicolons. Without two trailing semicolons the password does not pass and it asks for a password to join. You might want that, probably not.
There’s no requirement to escape the spaces, although I do wonder how one would deal if you’ve got a semicolon in the password.
Now I’ve got to figure out how one does contact cards and quick dialing… down the rabbit hole we go. UPDATE August 18, 2022 – here’s how you format that vCard in plain text!
[Wikipedia]
