QR code table tent sizes
There is no standard, but three sizes cover nearly every room, and they are the three printable pieces Gaslamp makes from each menu’s code. All three print on a home or office printer.
| Piece | Size | Where it works | Scanned from |
|---|---|---|---|
| Table tent | 4×6 inches | Dining tables, booths, patio tables | A seated guest, one to two feet away |
| Counter card | 3×5 inches | Register, pastry case, bar rail, pickup shelf | Someone standing, about arm’s length |
| Window sign | Letter, 8½×11 | Front door, front window, line outside | The sidewalk, several feet back |
The 4×6 tent is the workhorse. It is small enough for a two-top with plates, water glasses, and a bread basket, and big enough for the code, your name, and one plain line such as “Tonight’s menu.”
Keep the words on a QR code table sign few and useful. The restaurant name, so the card belongs to the room. One line that says what the code opens, because guests hesitate to scan a mystery square. If you still hand out paper, a short note that a printed menu is available on request. Leave off the Wi-Fi password, the social handles, and the review request; every extra line competes with the code for the guest’s attention and for space around the code itself.
Table QR code size: the one-tenth rule
A common rule of thumb is to make the code about one tenth as wide as the distance it will be scanned from. It is a starting point, not physics, and phone cameras vary. Worked through for a restaurant:
- Seated at a table, one to two feet from the tent: a code of roughly 1.2 to 2.4 inches.
- Standing at a counter, about two feet away: roughly 2.4 inches.
- On the sidewalk, five feet from the window: roughly 6 inches, which is why the window sign is a full page.
Two things matter as much as size. Leave a clear band of blank space around the code; a border or a logo pressed against it stops phones from finding the corners. And keep it dark on light. A pale code on a dark card looks good on a mood board and fails in a dim room.
Materials: matte or gloss, laminated or not
The code on a tent usually fails for physical reasons, not digital ones. Pick the stock for the room it goes in.
| Stock | Good for | Watch out for |
|---|---|---|
| Plain paper, folded | Testing, pop-ups, a first week | Wilts after one wipe-down |
| Matte cardstock | Most dining rooms and cafés | Spills stain it; keep spares |
| Glossy lamination | Wipe-down durability | Glare from pendants and windows can blind the camera |
| Matte lamination | Bars and busy tables | Costs a little more per sheet |
| Card in an acrylic holder | Bar tops, patios, anywhere tents get knocked over | The acrylic face glares too; angle it away from the light |
A QR code menu stand, a clear acrylic holder sized for a 4×6 card, is worth buying where tents fall over or blow away. Slide the printed card in and replace the card, not the stand, when it gets tired.
Where to put table tents, by room
- Dining room: center of the table or at the wall end of a banquette, code facing the seats. One per table; on a long communal table, one at each end.
- Café or counter service: a 3×5 card at the register and one on the pickup shelf, plus a window sign for the line outside. Tents on the café tables for the second coffee.
- Bar: counter cards every few seats along the rail, tents in the booths. Set the code beside the candle, not behind it. See QR drink menus.
- Patio: a card in a weighted holder. Direct sun on gloss is worse than any pendant light, so matte stock here.
- Food truck: a window sign at eye level on the side the line forms, and a counter card on the ledge. More on food truck menus.
Test it from the seat
Before the tents go out, and again after the first busy night:
- Sit in the chair a guest sits in, at the time of night they sit in it. Lighting at six and at nine are different rooms.
- Scan with an iPhone and with an Android phone, without leaning in. If you have to lean, the code is too small or too far.
- Tilt the tent toward the nearest light and scan again. That is the glare test.
- Check what opened. It should be tonight’s menu, readable without zooming.
What Gaslamp makes, and what it does not
Every Gaslamp menu has one QR code, in one of five code styles, and that code never changes. From the QR screen you print the 4×6 table tent, the letter window sign, and the 3×5 counter card on your own printer. Because the code opens a hosted menu you edit, a tent printed today still opens the right menu after next month’s price change. The step-by-step setup covers the rest.
- We do not print or ship tents. You print them yourself.
- We do not sell holders or stands.
- There are no per-table codes. Every table for a given menu gets the same code.