The Scenario
You are a warehouse operations coordinator at a specialty retailer. Your team just finalized a new product catalog with 200 SKUs. Every product needs a QR code linking to its product page so warehouse staff can scan shelf labels and customers can scan in-store for more detail.
The web team needs the QR code image links in the Catalog tab by Friday. They pull from column C automatically. It is Wednesday.
The bad version:
- You find a free online QR code generator, paste the first product URL from column B
- Download the image, upload to CDN, copy the CDN URL, paste into column C
- Do product two
- By Thursday afternoon you have done sixty-five products and have 135 left
- Friday arrives with 135 blank cells and the web team's automation fails on the first unset row.
The one-prompt version is done Wednesday afternoon.
The Easy Way: One Prompt in SheetXAI
SheetXAI is an AI agent inside your Excel workbook. It reads your product URLs and calls the API Ninjas QR code endpoint for each row, writing the generated image URL directly back to column C of the Catalog tab.
Open the SheetXAI sidebar and type:
For each product URL in column B of the Catalog tab, generate a QR code using API Ninjas and write the image URL into column C.
SheetXAI calls the API Ninjas QR code generator for all 200 rows and writes each image URL back. No manual uploads, no CDN steps.
What You Get
A complete catalog workbook with QR code links in column C:
- Column C: QR code image URL — one per product, ready to use in label templates
- 200 rows completed — not a Wednesday-afternoon partial
The web team's automation runs without hitting a blank cell.
What If the Data Is Not Quite Ready
Product catalog workbooks have edge cases. SheetXAI handles them inline.
When some product URLs are missing
A few rows have the SKU in column A but no URL in column B yet.
For rows where column B is blank in the Catalog tab, write "URL MISSING" in column C and skip QR code generation. For all other rows, generate a QR code from the URL in column B and write into column C.
When you also need barcodes for the SKUs
The warehouse label template uses a barcode for the SKU and a QR code for the product URL.
For each product URL in column B of the Catalog tab, generate a QR code using API Ninjas and write into column C. Then generate a barcode for each SKU in column A using API Ninjas and write the image URL into column D.
When you want QR codes that link to a tracking URL
Marketing wants QR codes to link through a tracking redirect so they can measure scan rates.
For each product URL in column B of the Catalog tab, construct a tracking URL by appending "?source=shelf-label&sku=" followed by the SKU in column A. Generate a QR code from the tracking URL using API Ninjas and write into column C.
When the full label-prep run is one prompt
Two hundred SKUs, some missing URLs, QR codes for tracking URLs, barcodes for SKUs, and a count of missing URLs for the web team.
For rows where column B is blank in the Catalog tab, write "URL MISSING" in column C and "BARCODE MISSING" in column D. For all other rows, construct a tracking URL by appending "?source=shelf-label&sku=" plus the value in column A to the URL in column B. Generate a QR code from the tracking URL via API Ninjas and write into column C. Generate a barcode from the SKU in column A via API Ninjas and write into column D. Count the rows marked "URL MISSING" and write the total in cell F1 with the label "Missing URLs."
The pattern: URL construction, two different API Ninjas calls per row, error handling, and a summary stat all in one instruction.
Try It
Get the 7-day free trial of SheetXAI and open any product catalog or inventory workbook, then ask SheetXAI to generate QR codes and barcodes using API Ninjas. The API Ninjas integration is included in every SheetXAI plan. See also how to decode VINs and add vehicle specs in Excel or the API Ninjas in Excel overview.