About vCards
A vCard is not a digital business card. They get confused constantly, so the short version first: a vCard is a file that saves a contact into someone’s phone. A Jot digital business card is a page that lives at a link and can be changed after you hand it out. They do different jobs, and most people end up using both.
What a vCard actually is
A vCard is a plain text file that describes one person or business, in a format every phone and email client already understands. It usually arrives with a .vcf extension, and it is genuinely just text — you can open one in a text editor and read it.
Here is a complete, working one:
BEGIN:VCARD VERSION:3.0 N:Rivera;Dana;;; FN:Dana Rivera ORG:Rivera Landscaping TITLE:Owner TEL;TYPE=CELL:5551234567 TEL;TYPE=WORK:5559876543 EMAIL;TYPE=WORK:dana@example.com EMAIL;TYPE=HOME:dana.personal@example.com URL:https://example.com END:VCARD
Every line is a property and a value. The file opens with BEGIN:VCARD, closes with END:VCARD, and declares which version of the standard it follows on the second line. That envelope is the whole trick — it is what makes the file recognisable.
The standard behind it
vCard is an open specification, not anyone’s product. Two versions are in common use:
- vCard 3.0 — defined in RFC 2426, and the version with the widest support. Jot writes 3.0 for exactly that reason: it opens everywhere, including on older devices.
- vCard 4.0 — defined in RFC 6350. Cleaner and more capable, but support is less universal, so it is a worse default for a file you are handing to strangers.
How a phone knows what it is
Two signals, and either one is usually enough:
- The MIME type
text/vcard, which is how a web server or an email attachment announces the file. - The file extension
.vcf, which is what a computer falls back on when there is no MIME type — a file copied to a USB stick, for instance.
Once it is recognised, the behaviour is built into the operating system. iOS opens the contact card with an Add Contact button. Android hands it to the Contacts app. Outlook, Apple Mail, and Google Contacts all import it directly. Nobody installs anything, and there is no account to create — which is the entire appeal.
A vCard can also be carried inside a QR code, by putting the file’s text into the code instead of a link. Scanning it offers to save the contact straight away, with no page load at all. See About QR Codes for how that works and where it falls down.
Why it beats typing a number in
The properties repeat. That is the part most people miss. One vCard can carry a work mobile and a desk line and a personal number, a work email and a billing email, several websites, a postal address, a birthday and a photo — and they arrive already labelled, in the right fields, spelled correctly.
| Property | Holds | Worth knowing |
|---|---|---|
N / FN | Structured name, then the full display name | FN is what shows in the contact list. N is the machine-readable split so sorting by last name works. |
ORG / TITLE | Company and job title | Shown under the name on most phones. |
TEL;TYPE= | Phone numbers | Repeatable. TYPE marks each one WORK, CELL, HOME — which is how the phone labels the buttons. |
EMAIL;TYPE= | Email addresses | Repeatable, same idea. This is how one contact arrives with a work address and a personal one already separated. |
ADR;TYPE= | Postal addresses | Seven semicolon-separated parts (PO box, extended, street, city, region, postcode, country). |
URL | Websites and links | Repeatable — a site, a booking page, a social profile. |
BDAY | Birthday | Phones that sync birthdays to a calendar read this. |
PHOTO | Profile picture | Either a link to an image, or the image itself encoded into the file. |
vCard or digital business card?
Back to the thing people get stuck on. The difference is what happens after you hand it over.
| vCard (.vcf) | Digital business card | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | A file | A page at a link |
| Where it ends up | Saved into their contacts app | Opened in their browser |
| Can you change it later? | No. Once saved, it is a copy on their phone. A new number means sending a new file. | Yes. Edit the page and everyone with the link sees the update. |
| Works offline | Yes, once saved. No connection needed. | No. It has to load. |
| Can it do more than contact details? | No. Names, numbers, addresses, a photo. | Yes — take an order, book a slot, send an invoice. |
Neither replaces the other. The page is where someone does business with you; the vCard is how your number ends up in their phone so they can reach you next week. A Jot card can offer both — the page they land on, and a Save Contact button that hands them the file.
Making one
Build a full vCard, with as many phone numbers, emails, addresses and links as you need, from your vCards. To put one into a QR code instead, use the vCard QR generator.