QR codes that carry the message itself
The message is the code.
Point any phone camera at a Patra code and the message opens full screen, in its own language and script. No app, no account, and nothing stored on a server.
Opens the viewer. The same tiny page for every code, kept on your phone after the first scan.
The whole message. Browsers never send the part after # to a server, so we never receive it.
Scan with your camera. The phone shown here is the real viewer, not a picture.
Written for every script
The same notice in five scripts. Each code holds the full text. Scan one, or tap it to open it in the phone above.
Indian and Khmer scripts take about one byte per letter, a third of the usual size, so a full sentence fits a code small enough for a visiting card.
Type it. Print it. Scan it.
Type
Write the message in any language. Pick its colours, and add more languages if you want one code to serve everyone.
Print
Patra packs the text into the code itself. Print it on a poster, a card or a slide, or show it on a screen.
Scan
The camera opens the link. The viewer unpacks the message on the phone and sets it as large as the screen allows, in the reader's language if the code has it.
Nothing to store, sell or lose. The message travels inside the link, and browsers keep the part after # to themselves. There is no database behind Patra.
Small codes, many jobs
- Notices in several languages
- One code on the board; each phone opens it in its own language.
- Churches and ministries
- A verse of the week with its reference, in the languages of the congregation.
- Events
- Room signs, timings and directions that open without signal after the first scan.
- Signs held up by hand Soon
- Huge text for an airport pickup, a market stall or a crowded venue.
- Emergency and ID cards Soon
- Contact details, or a medical card locked with a passphrase.
- Easier reading Soon
- Text as large as the screen allows, read aloud in its own language.
Read the bar before you trust a message
Every message sits above a bar that the message itself can never draw over. Its colour tells you who stands behind it.
Messages are plain text: nothing in them can be tapped as a link. Signed codes arrive in the next phase; today every code shows the grey bar.
Built to outlast us
Codes never expire
There is no account to lapse and no database to switch off. A code printed today opens the same way in twenty years.
Works offline
After your first scan the viewer stays on your phone, so every Patra code opens even with no signal.
Open format
The specification is public. Anyone can host a viewer, so printed codes keep working whatever happens to this site.
Free, and staying free
Making and reading codes costs nothing. Organisations that want a verified name on their codes, branded links or codes in bulk will be able to subscribe. Paying never changes how anyone's codes look or how long they last.