How to create a digital menu for free, with a QR code

To create a digital menu, decide what guests should be able to do with it (read only, or order too), get your dishes and prices into a menu builder, check every price, then print a QR code that opens it. The fastest free route is to upload a photo or PDF of the menu you already have: software reads the dishes and prices, you fix what it got wrong, and you get a link and a QR code. With Menuthere's free digital menu creator that takes about two minutes and needs no card.

Create my free menuCreate your free ordering page

Which kind of digital menu do you need?

"Digital menu" means four different things. Choose before you build, because it decides which tool you use.

This guide covers the first three: they all open from a QR code on the guest's phone. A wall screen is a different product. The differences between a PDF and a live menu are explained in what is a QR menu?

Step 1: Get your menu content ready

Whatever tool you use, you need the same things. Gather them before you start.

• Categories in the order guests should read them: starters, mains, sides, desserts, drinks.
• Every dish with its price. Write sizes as sizes ("Small $9, Large $13"), not as two dishes.
• Short descriptions for anything a guest might not know. Ten words is plenty.
• Allergens and calories if you have them. Many guests look for them first on a phone.
• Photos, only your own or ones you have the right to use. A menu without photos still works.

If your prices need a rethink while you're at it, see how to price menu items.

Step 2: Get the dishes in without retyping

Typing 60 dishes and their prices by hand takes an afternoon and invites typos. Upload what you already have instead.

With the free digital menu creator:

1. Type your restaurant's name. It goes on the cover and in the menu's link.
2. Upload your menu. Drag in one photo, several photos or a PDF, up to 50 MB each.
3. Pick a color. The cover, buttons and highlights take it on. The software reads your dishes, prices, sizes and categories while you choose.
4. Add your email and WhatsApp number, and enter the 6-digit code sent to your email. Your login goes to your email and the menu link to WhatsApp.
5. Share it. You get a link, a QR code, a printable table card and a free dashboard to edit the menu.

A new menu holds your first 50 dishes. If your upload has more, the ready page tells you how many were left out, and you add the rest in the dashboard. More on what gets read and what doesn't in turn a menu photo or PDF into a digital menu.

Designed your menu in Canva? Download it as a PDF and upload that. The full route is in make your Canva menu orderable.

Step 3: Check what was read

Software reads printed menus well, but not perfectly. Before you share the link, open your dashboard and check:

• Every price, especially prices printed next to dots or in a second column.
• Sizes. "Half / Full" or "12 oz / 16 oz" should be sizes of one dish, each with its own price.
• Two dishes on one line. "Fresh lime / mint lime" should be two dishes.
• Spelling of names, which stay in the language your menu is printed in.
• Add-ons such as toppings, milks or sauces. Set these up as add-on groups on the dish: a single required choice, or several picks with a limit.

Then add allergens and calories to each dish. Guests see them when they tap the dish, and the free allergen chart maker can print them as a chart for the counter.

Step 4: Choose how it looks

The digital menu opens in one of two designs. Booklet is a full-screen menu book with a cover, a page for each category and a back page with your phone, WhatsApp, address, hours and social links. Your theme shows the same layout as your ordering page. Either way it's for reading, and switching designs never changes the QR code.

On Lite ($17 a month) your ordering page can use any of nine layouts, from a dense text list with no photos to photo cards, and your own domain.

Step 5: Make the QR code

You have three options, depending on what the code should open:

All three make static codes: the link is inside the code, so it never expires.

Step 6: Print it at the right size

A QR code scans from about ten times its width, and most phones won't read one under 2 cm (0.8 in). So:

A longer link makes a denser code that needs more room: the QR code size calculator works it out from your real link. The table QR card maker prints A6 table cards, four to a sheet. Print on matte card and scan every code with two different phones before it goes out.

Step 7: Keep it up to date

Edit a dish in your dashboard and the menu changes for the next guest who scans. Switch a dish off when it sells out and it shows "Sold out" in the booklet. Give breakfast items set hours and they leave the menu outside them. None of this needs a new code.

Keep a few printed menus too. Some guests can't or won't use a phone, and the free printable menu maker prints one from the same dishes.

A worked example: a 64-dish diner menu

Marisol runs a diner with a two-page laminated menu: 64 dishes in 7 sections, with a few dishes in two sizes.

1. She photographs both pages flat, by a window, and uploads them to the creator with her diner's name. About 2 minutes.
2. The ready page says 14 dishes were left out, because a new menu holds the first 50. She adds them in the dashboard: about 10 minutes.
3. She checks prices against the laminated copy and finds two misreads where a price sat next to a row of dots. About 10 minutes.
4. She adds allergens to the 12 dishes guests ask about most: about 15 minutes.
5. She downloads the "Scan to view our menu" card for the counter and prints table cards with the code at 3.5 cm.

Total: under 45 minutes, $0, and every later price change takes seconds. When she wants guests to order from the table, she turns on table ordering in the same dashboard: free up to 50 orders a month with 0% commission, or Lite at $17 a month for unlimited orders and card payments.

From reading to ordering

A reading menu still leaves guests waiting for someone to take the order. When you're ready, add table QR codes so each order reaches the kitchen marked with the table, or share your store link for pickup. See QR table ordering, the free QR code menu and 12 QR codes every restaurant should print.

About two minutes, no card.

Create my free menuCreate your free ordering page