How to Make a QR Code for a Google Form That Never Expires

Google Forms cannot make a QR code. There is no button for it in the editor or the Publish panel, so the job is two steps: copy the form's responder link, then turn that link into a QR code with Chrome or a free generator. It takes under a minute.

The part worth getting right is the second step, because some generators hand you a code that points at their server rather than your form, and that code stops working when their free tier does. A code that encodes the form link directly never expires while the form stays live.

How do you make a QR code for a Google Form?

Everything starts with the responder link, which is the address people open to fill in the form. It is not the address in your browser while you edit, and a QR code made from the editor URL sends people to a sign-in page or a permission error. Get the right link first, then make the code.

1. Publish the form

   

   Click Publish in the top right of the editor. The first time, Google asks who can respond. Leave it on anyone with the link unless you are deliberately restricting the form to your organisation, because a QR code on a poster is going to be scanned by people who are not signed in to anything.

2. Copy the responder link, shortened

   

   Click the link icon next to Publish, or open the Publish panel again and choose Copy responder link. Tick Shorten URL first. The short forms.gle address has fewer characters, which means a simpler QR pattern with bigger squares, and a simpler pattern scans faster from further away and survives a bad print.

3. Make the code in Chrome

   Paste the link into a new Chrome tab so the form opens, then click the share icon at the right end of the address bar and choose QR code. Chrome draws the code on the spot and offers a Download button.

   Right-clicking the page and choosing Create QR code for this page does the same thing. No account, no watermark. The code encodes the form link directly.

4. Or make it in a generator

   

   If you want a colour, a logo in the middle or an SVG for print, paste the link into a generator such as QRCode Monkey, The QR Code Generator or Canva's QR tool. Choose the static option if the site offers static and dynamic, then download PNG for screens or SVG for anything that goes to a printer.

5. Scan it before you print it

   

   Point a phone camera at the code on your screen and check that the form opens, then check it again on the first printed copy. A code that opens the editor, a sign-in page or an old version of the form is the most common mistake on this whole page, and it is a thirty-second test.

Which QR code generator should you use?

Every route produces a working code. They differ in what you hand over to get it and in what happens to the code later.

The dynamic route is the one to think about. Dynamic codes are sold on a real benefit: you can change where the code points after printing, and you get a scan count. The cost is that the code no longer contains your form's address. It contains the generator's address, and the generator forwards people on.

If that company closes your account, caps your free scans or shuts down, every printed copy of your code is dead, and the form it pointed to is fine. For a code you can reprint next week that trade may be worth it. For a code going on 500 stickers, encode the form link.

Do Google Form QR codes expire?

A static QR code for a Google Form does not expire. The code is only the form's URL written as a pattern, so it works for exactly as long as that URL does. Editing the form changes nothing, because questions, title and theme all live behind the same address.

Adding a section, closing responses for a week and reopening, switching the form to a quiz: all fine.

Three things do break it. Deleting the form, obviously. Unpublishing it, which leaves the code pointing at a page that says the form is not accepting responses, and that is sometimes exactly what you want at the end of an event.

And making a copy of the form to reuse it, because the copy has a new URL and the old printed code still points at the original. If you run the same registration every term, keep one form and clear its responses rather than duplicating it, or the posters from last time quietly send people to the wrong place.

A dynamic code from a generator is a different story, covered above. It expires when your relationship with the generator does, not when the form does.

How do you make a Google Form QR code on a phone?

Open the responder link in Chrome on Android or iPhone, tap the share button and choose QR code. Chrome shows the code and lets you save it to your photos, and from there it goes into any document or message.

Safari does not have a QR generator of its own, so on an iPhone without Chrome, open the link in a generator site instead and save the image. Either way, the code you get is static and points at the form.

The other direction, scanning a code to open a Google Form, needs nothing at all. Every recent iPhone and Android camera app reads QR codes; point the camera at it, tap the link that appears and the form opens in the browser. There is no Google Forms app to install for respondents.

Where does a Google Form QR code earn its place?

A QR code makes sense wherever people are standing in front of something physical and you want the form open on their phone in two seconds. The same code, the same form, whatever the setting.

• Attendance and check-in: a code at the door, a form that asks for a name and picks the session from a dropdown. Turn on Collect email addresses if you need to know who, and see the event registration guide for capping a session at a headcount.
• Feedback at the point of experience: a code on the receipt, the table, the back of the seat or the exit door. People answer while the experience is fresh, which is the only time most of them will.
• Classroom and training: a code on the slide or the whiteboard for a quiz, an exit ticket or a consent form. Nobody types a URL off a projector correctly.
• Packaging and print: a warranty registration or a product survey on the box or the leaflet. Use SVG here and test the print at actual size.

Print rules that hold up: keep the code at least 2 cm square for something held in the hand and closer to 3 cm for anything read at arm's length, leave a clear margin around it equal to about four of its small squares, keep dark squares on a light background, and never place it across a fold.

Shorten the URL first and all of this gets easier, because a shorter address makes a coarser pattern.

What Google Forms cannot do with a QR code

• Make one: there is no QR option in the editor, in the Publish panel or in Settings. You always leave Google Forms to make the code.
• Count scans: the responses tab shows submissions, not scans, so you cannot see how many people opened the form and left. The only way to get scan data is a dynamic generator, with the dependency described above.
• Brand the destination: the code can carry your colour if a generator draws it that way, but it opens a form with the Google Forms footer and Google's theme options. A code on a printed piece with your logo lands on a page without it.
• Skip the sign-in for some questions: if the form uses a File upload question or Limit to 1 response, everyone who scans has to sign in to a Google account before they can answer. On a public poster that turns a two-second scan into a login screen, so avoid both settings on any form you distribute by QR code.

Where Formester fits

In Formester the QR code is part of publishing. Open Publish, and next to the form link there is Generate QR Code. Click it and the code appears with two style options, a toggle to draw it in your form's primary colour, and a format menu for PNG or SVG.

Download and you are done: no second site, no account with a generator and no watermark. The code encodes your form's own address, so it lasts as long as the form. The QR code generator is built in rather than bolted on.

The form the code opens is also yours all the way down. Your logo at the top, your colours, your domain if you want it, no footer from anyone else, and no sign-in for a file upload question on a public link. For a code that is going on printed material with your name on it, that consistency is the point.

What Formester does not do is count scans on the QR code itself. You see submissions and drop-off in the analytics, not how many phones pointed at the poster.

Related reading

• How to share a Google Form, for the link, email and embed options next to the QR route.
• How to embed a Google Form, when the form belongs on a web page rather than a poster.
• Create and share QR codes for your forms, the Formester-side walkthrough.
• How QR codes bring more responses to web forms, on placement and response rates.
• How to make a Google Form anonymous, for feedback codes where people need to trust the form.
• How to use Google Forms, for the parts of the builder this page assumes.