Render Terminal Text

Use this when you need developer-facing QR output in a terminal, CLI, log, text file, or deterministic snapshot test.

Minimal example

import {QRCodeTextRenderer, qrcode} from '@qrcodesdk/core';

const text = qrcode('HELLO WORLD').render(QRCodeTextRenderer());

console.log(text);

The returned value is a string containing block characters and newline separators.

Common options

You can control the rendered text size and margin by passing options to QRCodeTextRenderer.

import {QRCodeTextRenderer, qrcode} from '@qrcodesdk/core';

const text = qrcode('HELLO WORLD').render(
  QRCodeTextRenderer({
    size: 2,
    margin: 2,
  }),
);

console.log(text);

Option	Type	Default	Description
size	number	5	Integer scale factor for each QR module.
margin	number	4	Quiet-zone margin around the QR code, in modules.

The text renderer only uses size and margin. Color options are ignored because the output is plain text.

Common recipes

Print to the terminal

import {QRCodeTextRenderer, qrcode} from '@qrcodesdk/core';

const text = qrcode('HELLO WORLD').render(QRCodeTextRenderer());

console.log(text);

Use alphanumeric mode

import {QRCodeTextRenderer, qrcode} from '@qrcodesdk/core';

const text = qrcode('HELLO WORLD')
  .mode('alphanumeric')
  .render(QRCodeTextRenderer({size: 1, margin: 2}));

console.log(text);

Write to a text file

import {writeFileSync} from 'node:fs';

import {QRCodeTextRenderer, qrcode} from '@qrcodesdk/core';

const text = qrcode('HELLO WORLD').render(QRCodeTextRenderer());

writeFileSync('qrcode.txt', text, 'utf8');

Output details

The renderer uses Unicode block characters to create compact terminal output:

Character	Meaning
█	Upper and lower module are dark
▀	Upper module is dark
▄	Lower module is dark
space	Upper and lower module are light

The renderer combines two vertical rows of QR modules into one terminal line, making the output shorter while preserving the QR pattern.

Related pages

• Customize QR Codes
• Render SVG
• Custom Renderers