A menu QR code you can change later.

Change what’s at the address a code opens, and every printed code shows the new menu.

• A static code to a page you control. The address is in the squares, so the code is free and never expires. Point it at a page such as yourrestaurant.com/menu, and update the page when prices or dishes change.
• A generator’s dynamic code. The squares hold the generator’s short link, which sends each scan wherever you last pointed it. What happens to QR codes when a plan ends covers what each generator does when you stop paying.

Make it on the restaurant’s own account. Canva says only a code’s creator can edit it by default, and that ownership can’t be transferred; Uniqode says only the owning account can reactivate or transfer a code. A code made on a designer’s account stays with them.

Your own website keeps you in charge: the address is yours for as long as you keep the domain and the site.

A menu file works if you have no site. In Google Drive, sharing with “Anyone with the link” lets guests open it without signing in. For a new menu, Google’s steps are Manage versions, then Upload new version, which keeps it the same file. Google doesn’t say the share link stays the same, so scan the code after each new menu.

Your Google Business Profile can carry a menu too, for food and drink businesses: a link to it, or a photo or PDF. Set its menu link to the same page as your table code, and editing that page updates both at once.

• Leave a margin. DENSO WAVE’s QR code site says a code needs a blank margin four modules wide on every side, a module being one small square, with no text or pictures crowding it.
• Keep it dark on light. Its advice: “print out your QR Codes with black on a white background.” It says scanners that read with red light can’t see a red code on white, so test any colored code on phones before you print.
• Print it big, and don’t stretch it. DENSO WAVE recommends codes “as large as possible within the available printing area”; Canva says no smaller than 0.79 × 0.79 inch (2 × 2 cm). Resizing a code in an image editor distorts it, so download it at size, or as an SVG.

Print one proof and scan it from a guest’s seat. On an iPhone, open Camera in Photo mode and tap the link that appears. A Pixel’s camera shows a bubble or link once Camera scan suggestions is on; Google advises good light and no glare, which matters on laminated cards. Check the address is the one you expect, then try a second phone.

Keep a few printed menus too, for guests with a dead battery, no data or no wish to scan.

QR Codes is ours. Plain codes are free on our QR code generator, made on your device, as PNG or SVG, with no account. Each starts near-black on white with the four-module margin, and the page reads it back before it downloads. For a menu, leave it on black. Editable codes go through an implements.app short link you can re-point, and keep redirecting if you stop paying, though you can’t change them or make new ones until you renew. Those aren’t free: they come with implements, $4.99 a month or $49.99 a year for every tool, with up to 200 editable codes.

It doesn’t hold the menu itself: the menu still lives on your site or a file host, at an https address. A menu service like MENU TIGER does more, with the menu and ordering in one place, though its codes stop when the plan does, until you renew. Canva makes dynamic codes on its free plan too, with its logo, and they don’t expire unless you set an end date.