QR menu or PDF menu: what your guests actually see

That difference shows up in four places: a price change, a guest who reads another language, the photos, and what actually appears on the screen.

What is the difference between a QR menu and a PDF menu?

A PDF menu is a document. It has a fixed page size, so on a phone the guest pinches to zoom, drags the page sideways and hunts for the line they want. If the PDF is on your website, they may download it first.

A QR menu is a web page behind a printed code. The guest points the camera at the code, taps the link and the menu opens in the browser. There is no app, no account and no file to find. The page is built for a small screen: categories, product cards, prices and photos are arranged to be read with a thumb.

If you are choosing a product rather than a format, the checks on what makes a free digital menu worth using apply to both.

What happens when a price changes?

This is where the two formats separate.

With a PDF, a price change means a new document. You edit the source, export it, upload the new file, and replace the old one everywhere it was linked. The printed paper menus already on the positions still show the old price, and so does any copy a guest downloaded or saved. If the QR code points straight at a file name, you may even need a new code.

With a QR menu, you edit the product in the dashboard and save. The page the guest opens already shows the new price in every language. The printed code does not change, because it points to your menu link, not to a file. One edit reaches every phone that scans it next.

That is the whole point of the code: it is a permanent address for a menu that is allowed to change.

What does the guest see on a phone?

The guest scans the code with the phone camera and the menu opens in the browser. The first screen shows your business, your categories and the products, each with its name, price and, when you added one, a photo.

Tapping a product opens a panel with the larger photo, the full description, the price and the allergens you recorded. The guest can search the menu, filter it, open the allergen list and switch the language without leaving the page. The list they save to show a member of staff stays on their own phone; it does not place an order.

Nothing is installed. The menu is a page, so it works on the phone the guest already has, in the browser they already use.

How does translation work?

You write the menu once, in the language you use in the building. The guest chooses their language from a picker inside the menu. Product names, descriptions and the menu's own labels switch to that language, and the guest can change back at any time.

A PDF needs one file per language, and the guest has to know which file to open. A QR menu keeps one menu and translates it for each reader. That is also why a printed translation is easy to get wrong: the paper is fixed the moment it leaves the printer, while the menu page is not.

The guide to a menu in every language without an app goes further into what a guest sees when the staff and the guest do not share a language.

Do I still need a PDF at all?

Yes, for a document. If a supplier, an event organiser or a guest asks you to email the menu, a PDF is the right attachment. It opens the same way on every computer and it can be printed.

What a PDF is not good at is being the only menu behind a QR code. It was designed for a page, not a phone, and it cannot update itself. Keep the PDF for the rare request, and keep the live menu for the code on the position.

How do I turn a PDF menu into a QR menu?

1. Upload the PDF or photograph the printed menu in the AI Editor. It reads the pages, finds the categories and products, and builds the menu for you.
2. Check the prices first. Then check the product names and descriptions, and correct anything the editor misread.
3. Add a photo to the products you want to show. A product photo is not a photo of the paper page; it is the product itself.
4. Record the allergens product by product, if you serve food or drink.
5. Print the QR code and test it on your phone and on a phone set to another language.

The PDF itself is only the starting point. Once the menu is a page, you edit it from the dashboard and the paper stays out of the loop.

What about photos?

A PDF can hold a picture of the whole page, but that picture cannot be read at a glance on a phone and it cannot be searched. A QR menu puts a photo on the product it belongs to. The guest sees the card in the list and a larger version when they open it.

Photos are optional. A menu with clean names, prices and descriptions works without them, and you can add them over time. The photo is there to answer the question a guest asks at the position: what does this look like?

Which one should you print?

Print the code, not the menu.

One code on the position opens the live menu for every guest who scans it. When the menu changes, the paper does not. You only reprint if the code itself is damaged or the link it carries is replaced.

A PDF menu has the opposite rule: every price change is a print job, and every old copy is a wrong price waiting to be read.

The choice is not between paper and no paper. It is between a document that freezes on the day you print it and a menu that stays current while the code stays put.

If you want the live version, the pricing page shows what the free plan includes, and the hotel guide and food truck guide show the same menu on two very different positions.