How to Show Real-Time and Dynamic QR Codes for PowerPoint

QR code images or quick response images are often used in prints and displays. These can be scanned with your telephone’s camera app. This camera app detects that it is a QR code image, and translates the information into a link to a destination where you can find more information and details about the product or service that shows. But, if you are using PowerPoint for a presentation or digital signage, how do you create QR codes for PowerPoint?

We have added a QR code image feature to our DataPoint product. With this plugin for PowerPoint, you can link and display data coming from your data sources as QR codes.

With DataPoint you can display real-time information that updates itself while the slideshow is running. A good trick to draw attention to your information screens is to use clocks, weather, and news. DataPoint can connect to any RSS feed for news and show text and pictures in real-time. You can find here more about showing the news in PowerPoint.

Let’s illustrate how you can generate and show a QR code image on your slide instead of showing an URL pointing to the news article on the website.

First, design a slide like this where you use DataPoint to show real-time news.

To add a dynamic QR code image to your slide, you first have to insert any picture on your slide.  See the screenshot below where we inserted the DataPoint logo.  Here we want to show the QR code image.

With that picture selected, click DataPoint from the PowerPoint ribbon. Then click the Picture button from the Shapes group.

Allow DataPoint to convert this image into a dynamic picture.

Set the data connection to the connection with your RSS feed and set the column to the Link column. This column holds the URL or link to the full news article of the newspaper website.

In the preview section, you can see the URL of the news article. At this moment, no preview can be given as the URL itself is not a picture.

In the Options, select Content for a Quick Response code image (QR code). DataPoint will generate QR codes for PowerPoint image for you and show a preview here. Click OK to close.

That QR code image shows where the DataPoint logo was previously inserted. When a new news article is published, DataPoint will detect, and update the title, description, featured image, and QR code image.

Can you run the slide show on your computer screen, or you can use our iPoint or SignageTube product to send this dynamic presentation to information screens or digital signage screens.

Or you can use this to list your products with images, names, pricing information and a QR code image to redirect viewers to your website for more information.