Jim's TrueType QR Code Font

https://github.com/jimparis/qr-font

by arantius • 15 days ago

219 29 15 days ago

github.com

https://qr.jim.sh/

ChrisArchitect• 15 days ago

[dupe] a recent Show HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48703200

shreddit• 15 days ago

It doesn’t seem to like spaces that much, the code for [QR coded] is broken for me on safari ios. When the space is removed it’s a working qrcode again

diroussel2• 15 days ago

The page addresses this issue, saying that browser text wrapping can cause issues and gives advice on how to deal with it.

jrmg• 15 days ago

I think this is a different problem.

The page says that “browsers may split a QR code across lines” - but this isn’t split across lines.

Experimenting, if I just type "[Q R]" (very short, so not likely to line-break), the problem still occurs.

If I inspect the element, and add `white-space: nowrap;` to its style, the problem still occurs (although the text doesn’t wrap!).

jeroenhd2• 15 days ago

It looks like Safari doesn't render this correctly (checked on macOS). Works fine in Chrome and Firefox, though. Must be a Safari quirk of some kind.

andix2• 15 days ago

Impressive, but on iOS 27 even one of the examples don't work. Seems like it has an issue with spaces. https://imgur.com/a/tZGqtjR

diroussel2• 15 days ago

Did you read the explanation? It says right there on the page why it happens.

Or was that text added since you viewed it?

andix2• 15 days ago

I probably didn’t read it. But I also had to read it twice to understand what it meant.

I’m still not sure if this is the mentioned issue or a different one.

Groxx• 15 days ago

The only thing I'm seeing there is that line-wrapping might do [something], and a suggested workaround (which, oddly, they don't implement on the page). And the line-wrapping issue doesn't look like that to me, at least when I do it.

jeroenhd2• 15 days ago

Checked on my phone, Chrome+Firefox work, WebKit (through wpe-android) doesn't. Safari and WebKit can't render this font for some reason, I suppose.

LoganDark• 15 days ago

Spaces are definitely broken in Safari.

athenot• 15 days ago

Maybe it's not practical for day-to-day use but the way this hacks the font to produce something completely different is amazing!

trillic• 15 days ago

Font rendering should scare you

b112• 14 days ago

Indeed, I have all font downloads off in all my browsers, by default.

zb3• 15 days ago

Unfortunately the most important thing here is missing - the whole explanation, like how did we get there, what those fonts can do and so on..

altairprime• 15 days ago

That’s a common downside of HN: submitters often link the GitHub repository rather than the project’s explanation. The article’s had the project link added at the top (just below the GitHub link) and it has a much clearer story.

karunamurti• 15 days ago

OpenType specification is Turing complete, its hinting engine does math during rasterization and its GSUB (Glyph Substitution, a layout and shaping engine) does glyph stacking, QR code correction, etc to finalize the QR. The nice thing about it is if you copy and paste it, it goes to the original text.

foodevl4• 15 days ago

This doesn't use hinting. Some reasons why are listed at: https://github.com/jimparis/qr-font/blob/master/design.md#wh...

bch• 15 days ago

What a vector (no pun intended) for malware or other computation…

foodevl4• 15 days ago

Some details of how it works are in https://github.com/jimparis/qr-font/blob/master/design.md

Fair warning though: this was designed and implemented by an LLM, as an experiment to see if it was possible. I only guided it to a working solution by pointing out problems, and never dug deeply into its inner workings.

andonumb• 15 days ago

Great idea, but it's a shame that it only supports Basic Latin (English-only).

jhogervorst• 15 days ago

A fun benefit seems to be that you can select the QR code as text and copy it, which puts the original text in your clipboard.

maguay• 15 days ago

This ... means the page could render a QR code for humans while letting bots see the actual URL. That is incredibly cool.

dspillett• 14 days ago

Or with some tweaks to the font code they could see a different URL…

This could be used for good (diverting bots away from where you don't want them) or evil (different destinations for user and other readers of the page could be used to trick people going to undesirable locations, because the apparent URL checks out find according to automated scanners).

bulder• 14 days ago

Conventional web technologies already can handle this kind of use case, either by wrapping an image in a link tag, or using an alt= value.

yetihehe• 13 days ago

I think qr code is more readable by bots than humans and I would prefer to see actual url...

notRobot• 14 days ago

This is SO COOL. Works perfectly in FF for me, if it can be made to work in safari then this might be one of the easiest ways to generate and display QR codes on the front-end.

Jim's TrueType QR Code Font

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