Put your pdf menu online: scan up to 7 pages at once

Many venues have their menu as a PDF, from a graphic designer or exported from Word. It seems easiest to just put that PDF on the website and point a QR code to it. But on a phone, this means guests have to zoom, scroll, and zoom again. Same-QR turns your PDF or photos of your paper menu into a true online menu. Recently, we added support for multi-page menus in a single pass: up to seven files at once.

PDF menu or a true online menu?

A PDF is designed for A4 paper, not for a phone. The text is too small, links rarely work, it cannot be translated, and every price change means creating and uploading a new file. An online menu adapts to the screen, can be changed in seconds, displays allergens clearly, and can be translated into other languages. The path there doesn’t have to involve manual typing.

How to scan multiple pages at once

• 1. Open your menu in the “Menus” tab, or create a new one.
• 2. In the editor, you’ll see: “Menu on paper or as a PDF? Upload it.” Tap “Choose photos or PDF” or, on your phone, “Take photo”.
• 3. Select up to seven files at once—photos (JPG, PNG) or a PDF. This counts as one scan.
• 4. Same-QR extracts dishes, descriptions, and prices. This takes about twenty seconds per page.
• 5. You’ll see “N lines detected.” Lines that were hard to read are marked as “hard to read.” You can discard individual lines.
• 6. Tap on “Add N lines”. Review the pdf menu in the editor and publish it.

If you selected more than seven files, Same-QR reads the first seven. You can retrieve the rest later using “Read in another page”, which counts as an additional scan.

What happens to your data

• Imported lines are appended to the bottom of your categories. Anything you have already typed remains unchanged.
• If the pdf menu still contains the sample dishes from when it was created, the scanned menu replaces them.
• Same-QR recognizes allergens as letters (A to R, as is common in Austria) and as numbers.
• Nothing goes online before you approve it.

What you should check afterwards

Scanning saves you from typing, but it does not replace proofreading. Go through these points before publishing:

• Prices: especially for variants like 0.3 l / 0.5 l or small / large
• Allergens: Are the letters correct for every dish?
• Categories: Is the order correct, and are drinks not listed between the main courses?
• Marked lines: Compare everything marked as “hard to read” with the paper menu

Tips for good photos

• Shoot straight from above, capturing the entire page in the frame
• Use good, even lighting without a flash: On laminated menus, a flash creates reflections that obscure prices
• One page per photo, not two pages side by side
• For a pdf menu: include only the menu pages, no cover pages or photo spreads

Limits and quotas

If a PDF is too large, upload only the pages of the menu or export it at a lower resolution.

Conclusion

Adding a PDF to a website is quick, but on a mobile phone it can be tedious. With the scan feature in Same-QR, you can turn a PDF or photos into an online menu in one go, even with multiple pages. After that, you can change prices in seconds instead of recreating files. You can start for free at sameqr.com, and the first scan is included.

Frequently asked questions