Glossary
vCard
vCard is the standard contact-record format, defined in RFC 6350 for version 4.0 and RFC 2426 for 3.0. Encoded into a QR code it becomes a digital business card that a phone can save directly to its address book.
The shape
BEGIN:VCARD
VERSION:3.0
N:Lovelace;Ada;;;
FN:Ada Lovelace
TEL;TYPE=CELL:+14155552671
EMAIL:ada@example.com
END:VCARD
N is structured as family;given;middle;prefix;suffix — all four semicolons required even
when fields are empty. FN is the display name; omitting it is why contacts sometimes
import blank.
3.0 versus 4.0 in QR codes
Use 3.0. Phone cameras and older scanner apps handle it universally, and the additional 4.0 properties rarely survive import into a phone address book anyway.
Size
A full vCard runs 300–400 bytes — a version 11–13 code. Never embed a photo: base64 image data is measured in kilobytes against a 2,953-byte ceiling. Use MeCard when the printed code must be small.
Related
- MeCard — MeCard is a compact contact format created by NTT DoCoMo. It encodes the same essentials as a vCard in roughly 40% fewer bytes, producing a visibly…
- Payload — The payload is the actual string encoded in a QR code — the URL, the WIFI: block, the vCard. Everything about a code's size, density and minimum print…
- Data capacity — Data capacity is how much a QR code can hold, and it depends on three things at once: the version, the error-correction level and the encoding mode. The…