Building a Mac Shortcut To Easily Generate QR Codes 

Using this technique (brilliant, by the way, Gary!) is a great tip for teaching classes to seniors. I may be teaching such a class in the next few months, and I'll use this tip! Thanks to both of you!

Not sure if this would help, but in RU-vid in the bottom right corner the little gear wheel is Settings, in there you can slow the speed of the video down or speed it up. Although everything slows down, including the speech, maybe that would be helpful to track the mouse or hit the spacebar to pause the video when you need to digest what is being explained.

@@curtOphoto Yes, I have already tried those things but don’t care for them. I do hit the spacebar quite often on my iPad with magic keyboard or the remote while using my 4K Apple TV. And, of course rewind and rewind and pause and rewind. LOL!

Keep in mind a few things: 1. You can change the speed of RU-vid videos. I suggest trying 75% to see if you like that better. 2. You can also pause the video any time you like and even go back to rewatch parts. 3. I have this in the "About" section of my site: Q: You talk too fast in your videos. Can you slow down? A: The way you see me (Gary) in my videos is the way I really talk. I am enthusiastic about technology and I think it shows in the videos. I do not try to slow myself down or alter how I talk in the videos. I just try to be myself. I know I can’t please everyone all the time, so no matter how I did the videos there would be a few complaints. But I know that if I tried to tone down my enthusiasm or be someone other than who I am, then there’s no way I would have made this many episodes over many years... To add more to that, there is a lot that goes into making the videos. Not a single video I have ever made is 100% perfect the way I really want it when I post it. Usually far less. But every time I do something like go back and re-do a part of a video because I used the phrase "click here" instead of "click on the X next to the Y" it takes time and effort. If I keep going for perfection then soon I'll run out of steam and there will be no more videos. See how many other people have done 2700+ videos over 15 years with no major breaks. Maybe none, just me. That's because of burn-out, which I am trying to avoid. So please excuse the imperfections. They are a necessary part of the creation process. Hope this provides some explanation.

I don't think there is an action do that. You probably can with scripting if you are a coder.

@@macmost Thank you man!

The current one. Monterey.

Yes. In the video I show doing it to a clipboard.

Not sure how to generate those kinds of QR codes. This is for URLs. You'd need some other kind of QR code generator, and then an app for reading them that would translate the data to the custom human-readable information you have defined.

No, QR codes link to a URL. Put the PDF on a web server or sharing service that gives it a URL, and then create a QR code for that URL.

Since it is a bitmap, I don't think converting to an SVG would reduce the size. You'd need something that can generate native SVG images. Unless you can find a third-party app to add an action to Shortcuts specifically for that, there's not much you can do. But you can use Resize Image and Convert Image to make it smaller if you like.

@@macmost thanks Gary, I built the shortcut and I’m loving it! I set it to obtain text from clipboard and put the qr back in the clipboard so I can paste it anywhere

No, Shortcuts were introduced with macOS Monterey.

Well with this Shortcut, you don't need to use an app.

As a background? I suppose as long as there is enough contrast between the background color and the black squares in the code it would be fine. Test it and see.

Thank you. I've found the App now and the QR Code works a treat. The quickest way I've found to do it and save it at the same time is to screenshot the QR code, drop it onto a new page in Pages then add my logo on top (reducing opacity the logo until it works). Saved with a relevant title and it's good to go. @@macmost

@@MandarinLeisure Instead of doing a screenshot (probably doesn't matter in your case, but usually that does reduce quality) just drag and drop the file the Shortcut produces or Copy from Quick. Look. That way you get the actual graphic instead of a screenshot of it.

Excellent advice as always. Thank you 👍@@macmost

Not with this. Not sure how those are made, but probably with special software or designers.

You can change the default browser on your iPhone, sure. See support.apple.com/en-us/HT211336 Is that what you mean? You can pin most Shortcuts to the Menu Bar on the Mac. It is in the settings sidebar for any Shortcut.

@@macmost No, I know how to change the default browser, but the Shortcut action only seems to be relative to Safari with no option to use the default browser. Ah, thanks for the tip on settings sidebar... not where I was thinking or looking for it.

@@asraiSOA I think it would take the other browser to offer some Shortcuts actions to do what you want. Easy for them to implement if they have a mind to do it.

@@macmost True. Overall not a biggy. For what I want/need this for, opening up Safari to create the QR is a nonissue really. Really appreciate the video and the replies.

It should. Try "sharing" the location from the map as a link, and then using the link to make a QR code. Test and see.

@@macmost it worked. thank you!!!!

The QR code IS the text of the URL to a site. So if you make a QR code for example.com it literally has "example.com" in that QR code. So to do what you want, have the QR code go to a general page on your site where you have links to listings. Then you can change the contents of that page.

It is in the setting for each Shortcut. See ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-ebj0VU92YrA.html

Yes. It is in the settings for the Shortcut.

No, only URL ones I think. But try it and see.

@@macmost I tried and it accepts only one info of the contact: URL, or Phone Number, or E-Mail, or... we pick. It is impossible to use the whole contact though, as one can do on certain sites. Very very useful still. Thanks for the comment, and above all for the useful videos!

Too much to mention here. Automator is Mac-only, allows you to create more kinds of thing (like Folder actions) and has lots of legacy features. Shortcuts will probably replace Automator, but many years from now.

@@macmost Thanks. It's true that you can use Shortcuts also on the iPad. I hope to see more of handy tutorials about Shotcuts, I like the App! Have a nice day.

Theoretically.

Look carefully at your code and try to see where you went wrong.

No. It is just another way of "writing" a URL. Now if the URL goes to a web page and that web page goes away, then that's a problem. But it would be the same problem if you had the written URL and used that.

Share it and then get the link. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-CIXr_MNO874.html

On an iPhone a QR code can contain a URL. So you'd have to put your contact information on a web page (or use a service that does something like that) and then just make the URL for your page into a QR code. Then the user would be taken to that page.

@@macmost That was the part I was missing, thank you!

Just search for "QR" and see if it comes up then.

@@macmost Yep,got it. Thanks.

My iMac doesn’t bring up the QR Code generator, any other suggestions?

@@mikecureton2234 Make sure you are searching all actions in Shortcuts, not just a subset, like for a specific app.

@@macmost thanks I found it. Your the best!!

True. But you can customize it once you learn how to build it yourself. The idea here is to learn something, not just to know which button to press.

I just made a way for that too, but in this one we just can't get the name from the webpage and rename it automatically, instead, we'll have to manually type the name, the rest is the same.

@@aveerajsharma Yes, that is how you do it. Well, copy and paste, not type.

@@macmost 👍🏻