Adding a QR code to your shipping labels is an easy way to give your customers additional information. A QR code can contain a consignment note, a link to your website or other relevant information.
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Important: It is always your responsibility to get approval from the carrier if you add your own information to a label. Failing to get approval may cause extra shipping costs and you risk the shipment being rejected. |
This tutorial will show you how to add a QR code to your shipping labels. We will put the QR code in an overlay file that will be printed on top of the original label:
- Open the nShift Document Editor. It can be found in the Consignor folder, usually located at C:\Program Files (x86)\Consignor. Double-click the ConsignorDocEditor icon to open the application.
- Go to File > New and select Overlay Document. It is important that the paper size and orientation match the label. Most labels have the "Short" size. Click OK.
- You will now see a blank document with the size of a label. This is the canvas where you can add your content. Drag a barcode from the Toolbox and drop it to the canvas.
- Click on the barcode to see the properties. Change the Type to QR Code.
- Now you need to set the data type which determines what type of data the QR code should be based on. Make sure the Data Type is set to Variable.
- Adjust the Max Length if your data will be longer than 20 characters.
- Click the "..." next to the Variable field to define which variable to use.
- Select the desired variable and click OK. You can enter a search word to filter the list. Select a field corresponding to the information you want in your QR code. In this example, we will use Custom Field 1 but you can use any field you want from the list. The selected variable will now appear under Properties.
- Position the QR code where you want it on the label. It should correspond to the place where you want it printed on the original label.
- Save the overlay file by choosing File > Save as. Name your file and click OK to save the file on your computer.
- Go to Setup and open Custom Labels and Documents. If the item has not been added yet, then right-click in the right-hand side pane and select New > Custom Labels and Documents.
- In the Custom Labels and Documents, go to the tab Overlay Labels and click Add.
- Enter a name and choose Load From File. Browse to the location where you saved your overlay file and click OK.
- Click OK to close the Custom Labels and Documents window.
- Navigate to the level where you want to apply the overlay with the QR code. In this example, we will print the QR code on a DHL label from the carrier LGT so we are navigating to the carrier level. Right-click in the right-hand side pane and select New > Overlay Labels.
- Select your overlay in the column with Available overlay labels and click the arrow to move it to the Enabled overlay labels and click OK to save.
- Your overlay file is now active and a QR code will be printed on your carrier label the next time you make a shipment. The QR code will contain the information from the field you set as the variable in step 6. We added https://nshift.com to Custom Field 1 on the example label below, so the QR code contains the url to our website.
