When to use it
Hybrid classrooms, church services, conference session signs, a notice on a meeting room door for the remote link, printed course handouts, event badges for online side sessions. A Zoom code gets a phone into the call without reading out an eleven digit number.
The example code on this page points at getqrstudio.app, because we do not encode real meeting links here. Yours will follow the pattern above.
How it behaves on phones
iPhone: the Camera app shows a banner naming zoom.us. Tapping it opens Safari, which hands off to the Zoom app if installed and joins the meeting, asking for a name if the person is not signed in. Without the app, the page offers the App Store.
Android: most Android scanners open the link and Android routes it to the Zoom app if installed. Without it, Chrome shows a page offering the Play Store. A few older Android browsers try to join in the browser, which Zoom supports with reduced features.
Common mistake
Printing a poster in a public foyer with the full join link including pwd=. The passcode was there to stop strangers wandering in, and the code just handed it to anyone with a camera. Either drop the parameter for public print or use a waiting room.
Gotchas
The passcode trade-off. With ?pwd=, the scan joins in one step; without it, the app asks for the passcode. Convenience for a private audience, protection for a public one. A waiting room gives you a middle path: include pwd for the convenience and admit people manually.
Meeting IDs expire. A scheduled meeting’s ID stops working some time after the meeting ends, and a recurring meeting’s ID lasts as long as the series. A Personal Meeting ID is permanent. Match the code’s lifetime to the meeting’s.
Company subdomains. Business accounts get links like https://company.zoom.us/j/.... They work the same but are longer. The zoom.us/j/ form usually works for the same meeting.
Registration links. Webinars with registration use https://zoom.us/webinar/register/... links that are 80 or more characters. They are ordinary URL codes but dense; a dynamic code with a short redirect prints better.
Size. https://zoom.us/j/1234567890 is 28 characters and fits version 2 at level M, 25 modules wide. With ?pwd= and a typical 32 character value it is about 65 characters and needs version 4.
Changing the meeting. If the meeting is rescheduled with a new ID, the printed code is dead. For a series that may change, a code pointing at a page you control that redirects to the current meeting survives.
Try it in QR Studio
QR Studio has a Zoom type. Paste the invite link and it separates the meeting ID from the passcode so you can choose whether to include it, then builds the link.
Print advice
Level M. A code on a slide or a door sign is read from 1 to 2 m, so 10 to 20 cm. A handout is read up close at 2.5 cm. Print the meeting ID in text beside the code, and the passcode too if the audience is private, so a person on a laptop can join by typing.
Try it yourself
Paste your Zoom link with and without the pwd parameter and compare the code version each one needs.