PNG or SVG for a QR code
Last updated 16 September 2026
Both formats are offered here, and the choice is simpler than most guides make it sound. It comes down to one question: will the code ever be resized or printed large?
Short answer
- SVG for anything printed, anything scaled, anything a designer will touch.
- PNG for screens: websites, slides, emails, chat messages.
What PNG actually is
PNG is a grid of pixels. When you make a 300 by 300 pixel PNG, that is the real resolution. It looks perfect at 300 pixels wide. It looks fine slightly larger. Past a point it gets soft, and soft is bad for QR codes specifically.
Here is why. A QR code is a grid of modules, and the scanner needs to see the boundary between a black module and a white one. If the image is stretched, some modules land on pixel boundaries and others do not. The result is a code with uneven module sizes. It still looks like a QR code to you. To a scanner it is a mess.
This is why a code that scanned perfectly on a business card can fail on a poster. Someone took the 300 pixel PNG and let a print shop scale it up. The modules turned to mush.
What SVG actually is
SVG is not pixels. It is a set of instructions: draw a square here, another there. There is no fixed resolution, so it renders perfectly at any size. Business card or billboard, same file, same sharpness.
It is also smaller than a PNG of the same visual quality, because it is describing rectangles rather than storing millions of pixels. A text file versus an image.
The catch: SVG is not accepted everywhere. Some social platforms do not preview it. Some older design tools choke on it. Email clients mostly refuse it. It is a vector format, and vector formats live in design and print software rather than on the web.
A practical workflow
If the code might end up in both places, get both files. They encode the same content, so there is no risk in having two.
- Download the SVG. Keep it as the master. This is the file you send to a printer or hand to a designer.
- Download the PNG at a sensible size for the screen use, usually 300 to 500 pixels.
- Never scale a PNG upward. If you need it bigger, generate a bigger PNG or use the SVG.
Other formats you will see mentioned
Some tools offer EPS, PDF, or JPEG. EPS and PDF are vector, like SVG, and are aimed at print houses that prefer them. JPEG is the one to avoid: it is a lossy format, which means it deliberately blurs detail to save space. Blurred module edges are exactly the failure mode a QR code cannot afford. If you only have a JPEG, regenerate from the source or go back to the tool.
What not to do
- Do not screenshot a code. A screenshot resamples and often resizes it.
- Do not drag-resize a PNG in a document. It is being stretched, not regenerated.
- Do not compress aggressively. Set the PNG quality high; the file is small anyway.
- Do not run a code through an image optimiser that reduces colour depth. It can shift the black and white values into greys, which hurts contrast.
If in doubt, print a proof and scan it. That catches every one of these problems in about ten seconds.