qr.wrid.org — QR codes as infrastructure

What is this?

qr.wrid.org is a simple, public service that generates QR codes as standards-compliant images (SVG or PNG). It is designed for long-term use in publishing, education, certificates, and archival material.

No tracking. No analytics. No URL shorteners. Just encoding.

Generate a QR code

The result will be returned as an image (SVG by default, PNG if requested via Accept header).

How to use it

https://qr.wrid.org?encode=https://example.org
https://qr.wrid.org?encode=https://example.org&px=1000 (PNG size)
Returns image/svg+xml or image/png based on Accept header
Cacheable and deterministic

You can embed the result directly in documents, PDFs, or HTML without further processing.

Parameters

encode — The text to encode in the QR code (required, max 2048 characters)
px — Size of PNG in pixels (optional, default 600, max 1500)

Content negotiation

This service supports HTTP content negotiation. The same URL can return different representations depending on the Accept header sent by the client.

image/svg+xml — returns an SVG QR code (default)
image/png — returns a PNG QR code
text/html — returns this documentation page

This allows the same endpoint to be used interactively by humans and programmatically by machines, without changing URLs.

CURL Examples

Generate SVG

curl "https://qr.wrid.org/?encode=https://example.org"

Generate PNG

curl -H "Accept: image/png" \
  "https://qr.wrid.org/?encode=https://example.org" \
  --output qr.png

Generate PNG with custom size

curl -H "Accept: image/png" \
  "https://qr.wrid.org/?encode=https://example.org&px=1000" \
  --output qr.png

Why another QR generator?

Most QR generators today are marketing tools. This one is infrastructure.

No dependency on third-party APIs for SVG generation
Open, inspectable output
Stable URLs
Built for long-lived documents

What’s next?

In the future, paths like qr.wrid.org/<id> will resolve QR codes backed by WRID records.

The current ?encode= endpoint will remain available.