DocumentationMac

QR labels and NFC tags

Every asset carries a QR code that opens its record in the companion app. The QR Code & Label card on the asset record is where you copy it, save it as a PDF, or send it to a printer.

For
Copy, save as PDF, or print the QR code that opens an asset record in the companion app.
Will not
No label designer, no bulk print from the Assets table, and no web fallback: the QR is a starkive:// deep link, so a phone without the companion app will not open it.

Where the card lives

Open any asset and look for QR Code & Label in the sections rail. It sits between Overview and Coverage.

The card shows the code itself on the left, at 116 by 116 points, and three actions on the right: Copy, Save Label… and Print…. Above the actions is a line of explanation naming the asset tag, so you can see at a glance which machine you are about to label.

What the code encodes

The QR is not a serial number or a URL to a web page. It is a deep link into the companion app.

The payload is a starkive:// URL of the form starkive://asset/<id>?tag=<tag>, where the id is the asset’s canonical identifier and the tag is its asset tag. Scanning it on an iPhone opens that asset’s record directly, with no search step in between.

The same code is what the printed label carries, so a scan of the paper tag and a scan of the on-screen code land in the same place. The card’s own wording says it plainly: scan to open the asset tag in the companion app, or scan the printed tag itself.

The code is generated on the Mac, from the asset’s own identifier. Nothing is fetched, and nothing is registered with a service. If you copy the code into a document and the asset is later deleted, the link still resolves to the id; whether the record is still there is a separate question.

Copying the code

Copy puts the QR image on the clipboard, not the URL behind it.

Copy writes the rendered QR image to the general pasteboard. Paste it into a Keynote slide, a Pages document, an email, or anything else that accepts an image. If you need the URL itself rather than the picture, read it off the card: the format is fixed and the id and tag are both visible on the record.

Saving a label as a PDF

Save Label… writes a single-page PDF sized for a physical label, not a screenshot of the card.

  1. Click Save Label…

    A save panel opens with the filename already filled in as <asset-tag>-label.pdf, for example NW-0003-label.pdf. The only permitted file type is PDF.

  2. Choose where it goes

    Pick a folder and confirm. The file is written and the panel closes. If the render fails, an alert titled Couldn’t create the label appears with the reason underneath.

The PDF is 360 by 160 points, which is a label shape rather than a page shape. It holds the QR on the left at 120 by 120, the asset tag in bold at 26 points, the make and model underneath at 13, and the serial number prefixed S/N at 11 if the asset has one. The whole thing is black on white, with no tint and no background colour, so it prints cleanly on a thermal label printer or a sheet of adhesive stock.

Printing directly

Print… skips the file and goes straight to the system print dialog with the same label.

The label is rendered at the same 360 by 160 points and handed to the standard macOS print panel, so paper size, orientation, printer selection and the rest are whatever you have configured for that printer. Scaling is set to fit proportionally, so a label printed on A4 will be centred and enlarged rather than cropped.

If you are printing a batch, save the PDFs and print them together rather than opening each asset record in turn. There is no bulk label action on the Assets table; the card is per asset.

When the code will not render

A failed render is rare, and the card tells you rather than showing a blank square.

If the QR cannot be produced, the card shows a grey placeholder with a dash in the middle instead of the code, and the three action buttons remain in place. Copy does nothing in that state. Save Label… and Print… raise the Couldn’t create the label alert with the message Couldn’t render the label.

In practice this means the asset is missing something the link needs, most often a tag or an id. Check the record’s Identity section before trying again.

What this card does not do

Three things people ask for that are deliberately not here.

  • No label designer. The layout is fixed. There is no template editor, no logo slot, and no field picker. The label is the same on every asset so that a technician holding one can read it without learning your house style.
  • No bulk print from the table. Labels are produced one asset at a time, from the asset’s own record. See Assets for what the table does offer in bulk.
  • No web fallback. The QR is a starkive:// deep link, not an https:// URL. A phone without the companion app installed will not open it.