How to make a QR code for a Google Form
Make a QR code for a Google Form from its responder link, check who can answer, see which poster each response came from and reuse the code for a new form.
To make a QR code for a Google Form, publish the form, copy its responder link and turn that link into a QR code. A code made from the form’s own address always opens that one form. Put a short link in between, and the same printed code can open next year’s form too.
This guide follows a made-up community garden that collects volunteer sign-ups with posters at the town library and a café. Google’s menu names may differ slightly. Links redirects to your form and counts clicks; it doesn’t create forms, decide who can answer or count responses.
Publish the form and copy the responder link
Google’s page on publishing and sharing a form gives these steps:
- Select Publish at the top right and follow the prompts. The button then shows Published.
- Select Published or Share, then select Copy responder link.
Don’t copy the address in your browser while you edit the form: it’s for editors, and respondents can’t answer from it. With your own short link, you won’t need Google’s Shorten URL option.
Keep the form published while the posters are up: Google says people with the link can’t open an unpublished form.
Check who can respond
Under General access, you can open the form to anyone with the link or to target audiences. Before publishing, you can also limit it to a domain, a trusted audience or a group. A form limited to your school or workplace stays closed to a neighbor who scans a library poster.
In Settings, under Responses, turning on Limit to 1 response makes people sign in to a Google Account first. That turns away anyone without one, so the garden leaves it off.
Then test the form as a stranger would:
- Open the responder link on a phone in a private window, signed out.
- Read every question on the small screen.
- Submit a test response and read the confirmation message.
- Remove or mark the test entry afterwards.
Record where each response came from
A short link counts clicks, not sign-ups, so let the form record the source. The garden adds a multiple-choice question, “Where did you hear about us?”, with the answers “Library poster”, “Café poster” and “Other”.
Then it makes one pre-filled address per poster. Google’s steps: select More at the top right, choose Pre-fill form, fill in the answer, select Get link and copy the link at the top. The library version opens with “Library poster” already chosen. A respondent can still change a pre-filled answer, so read the totals as a guide, not an exact count.
UTM tags, covered in the UTM guide, won’t help here: Google Forms doesn’t save tags added to a form’s address. Links doesn’t pass on anything added to a short link either, so each pre-filled address needs its own link.
Create the short link and QR code
In the Links app, press New link for each poster. Name each link after the poster’s location, such as “Volunteer form · library”, and paste its pre-filled address (or the responder link) as the destination. Links accepts addresses up to 2,048 characters.
Open the link, press QR code and choose Download PNG or Download SVG. The code holds the short reunified.link address, so it has fewer, larger squares than a same-size code of the long address, and its destination can change without reprinting.
Label the code with what it opens, such as “Scan to volunteer”, and print the short address under it for anyone who can’t scan. Test a proof at the final size with two phones; the QR code size guide covers sizing.
Switch to a new form without reprinting
Next year, the garden publishes a new form and makes new pre-filled addresses from it.
For each poster, open its link in Links, choose Edit main destination, paste the new pre-filled address and save. The short link and QR code stay the same. Rules keep their own destinations, so check any you added. The editing guide shows how to keep a way back.
Scan each poster and check that the new form opens with the right answer chosen. Only then unpublish the old form from its Published options; anyone with the old form’s own link will need the new one. For event sign-ups, see the event links guide.
Compare scans with responses
After a month, the garden compares:
| Short link | Counted clicks | Responses with that answer |
|---|---|---|
| Volunteer form · library | Statistics in Links | “Library poster” in Responses |
| Volunteer form · café | Statistics in Links | “Café poster” in Responses |
Links shows each link’s counted clicks per day. Bots and link previews aren’t counted, but repeat opens by one person are, so a click isn’t a person. Someone who scans but doesn’t volunteer adds a click and no response, so expect a gap. Put next year’s posters where the responses came from, not only where the clicks did.
Creating links is free, each counted click costs 0.05 credits (current pricing), and new accounts start with 100 credits. Links pause when credits run out, so check the balance before putting up more posters. Links gives each poster a code you can keep from year to year; the form and its responses stay in Google Forms.