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I am in search of the most appropriate route to take, vCard or MeCard, and the correct syntax to use in order to create unique forms for various uses. An example being an inventory form.

Creating a new contact card by scanning a QR Code is as far as I am. However, I would like to create unique forms with unique keys/values. Is this easily achieved? Is there a set of keys that are specific to achieve this?

I have looked into the following resources: https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc6473 https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc6350

If anyone has experience with any of the topics stated above, I would very much appreciate the advice and insight.

As this is my first question, go easy on me.

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les
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  • Are you sure that vCards are for inventory forms? – James A Mohler Dec 06 '13 at 06:29
  • They are not, but I would like to adapt them to fit a number a uses. Any ideas for altering or shaping their use to other areas would be a great start for future research. Any ideas let me know. – les Dec 06 '13 at 06:50
  • Mecard is not what you need, they have few fields and you can't add new ones (QR readers won't recognize them). vCard might be better, but how to you plan to use them? – Alexis Laporte Dec 06 '13 at 08:27
  • @Ours-Polaire I plan to take information from a form and use it when generating a QR Code specific to the information supplied. Upon scanning the QR Code, a vCard like format will display the information contained within the original form. – les Dec 06 '13 at 18:26
  • I know I can do this through other means like taking the information within the QR Code to display in a regular fashion, without the use of vCard etc; however, I'd like to get a better understanding for them and their possible applications to business. Plus it is a fun little project. – les Dec 06 '13 at 18:32
  • That's a good idea, the vCard format is great. Yet the vCard will be read in 2 steps: first the QR Code reader, then the OS if the user wishes to save the info. The reader might remove parts it does not aknowledge (it might expects specific fields), the OS might also do the same. Do you want to save the vCard in the contacts of the phone, or just display its content? – Alexis Laporte Dec 08 '13 at 21:55
  • @Ours-Polaire Your comment is right on the money. Some information is skipped over. I'm using a version of the PHP QR Code library. I've attempted to scan identical inputs with an online QR code generators, http://zxing.appspot.com/generator, which yielded the desired output (no information is omitted). To answer your question, I'd like to save the information in a database to display and or print when needed. – les Dec 09 '13 at 14:33
  • How do you plan to bring the vCard from its scan in the QR Code reader to the database or the printer? – Alexis Laporte Dec 09 '13 at 18:35
  • @Ours-Polaire store the original input and generate the png as needed. – les Dec 10 '13 at 06:02

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A vCard, .vcf or Versitcard is the standardised file format for electronic business cards. This is a universal format understood by most devices and software that handle things like contact information and email. vCards can hold everything from your first name, to a photo, to an audio clip. There is some good information about this format on Wikipedia.

meCARD is a more compact format, and that it generates a smaller QR code, meCARD might make more sense for contact information, it is possible that your phone will understand both formats, in which case meCARD would make more sense for contact information. as some phones like blackberry tends to face some problems scanning vCards

Mohammad Dayeh
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