Turn an Excel spreadsheet into QR codes

Leave the workbook alone. There is no need to save a copy as CSV first, strip the formatting or flatten the formulas, because this page reads xlsx and xls files directly and takes the values it finds in them. Every sheet in the workbook is read, every non-empty cell becomes its own QR image named after the text it holds, and the whole set arrives as a ZIP, or as several of them once the workbook runs past a thousand values.

How to prepare the sheet

• Keep one value per cell, since each non-empty cell produces a code of its own.
• Clear out headings, totals rows and notes in the margin, because those are cells as well and would each turn into a code.
• Remember that every sheet in the workbook is read, so empty or delete the tabs you do not want codes for.
• Formula results are taken as their calculated values, which means a column built with CONCAT works without any extra step.
• Formatting, colours and merged cells are ignored entirely. Only what is in the cell counts.
• Know that a workbook with more than one sheet also produces a separator code between sheets, reading something like --- Sheet: Sheet2 ---. Use a single sheet if you want nothing in the ZIP but your own values.

Why the spreadsheet is where this starts

Stock takes live in Excel. So do seating plans, staff lists, inventory numbers, price lists and the running order for every conference small enough to be organised by a person rather than a platform. The spreadsheet is where the data is still being edited on the morning it is needed, and routing it through a CSV export in between adds the step where the version being printed and the version being edited quietly come apart.

The workbook is parsed by a library running inside this page and never uploaded. No copy is retained, the images are drawn on your own machine and the download is assembled there, which is what makes it reasonable to put a staff list or a customer sheet through it at all.