Choose between a contact QR and a hosted business card

An embedded contact card

The contact generator writes a vCard 3.0 entry. Full name is required. Phone, email, organization, job title, website, and a postal address (street, city, postal code, country) are optional, and blank fields are omitted rather than written as empty lines. Email must look like an address, and website must be a complete http or https URL. A portrait is not supported.

For example, a sample contact named “Alex Example” with phone “+1 202 555 0123,” email alex@example.com, and organization Example Studio can be printed on a badge. The data is in the image itself, so a compatible scanner can offer to import it without fetching a contact page. Commas, semicolons, and line breaks you type are escaped so they cannot split a field or add one.

Every field adds data, and a denser pattern needs a larger print to scan comfortably. A badge or business card may scan better with name, phone, and email than with a full postal address. Contacts apps also differ in which fields they import and where they place them, particularly the address.

BEGIN:VCARD
VERSION:3.0
FN:Alex Example
TEL:+1 202 555 0123
EMAIL:alex@example.com
ORG:Example Studio
END:VCARD

A web card for several contact actions

The Digital Business Card tool creates a URL for this site’s /card page. Its name, role, phone, email, and website travel in URL query parameters. The recipient needs access to the site to view that page. It can display call, email, and website actions, but it is not a hosted account that you can edit after printing.

Anyone with that URL can read its contents. It may remain in browser history or server logs. Use business contact information intended for sharing, not private details. An embedded vCard avoids that page dependency, but it saves fields into an address book rather than showing tappable buttons.

If you only need one action

Use the Phone tool for a dialing prompt, Email for an addressed message with an optional subject, or SMS for a number and optional message. These are different from saving a contact. They do not automatically place a call or send a message; the recipient still chooses what to do.

Print a fallback phone number or address next to the code. A desktop browser or a phone without a mail app may not handle the action as you expect. Opening a composer does not prove a message was delivered.

Check the imported fields, not just the image

1. Use a sample contact first and scan the downloaded image.
2. Inspect every field you filled in, especially the phone number and address, in the receiving app before saving.
3. Check whether the device creates a duplicate of an existing contact. Do not treat a successful scan as automatic merging.
4. Generate the real code, test a physical sample, and keep a human-readable way to contact you on the card.