Random Letter and Number Generator: Short Codes for Labels: how it works
Set how many letters and how many digits, and this random letter and number generator fills the pattern. It opens on one letter and one digit, such as B7. Ask for up to 1,000 in one press with no repeats, then copy them out as raffle tickets, table labels or sample IDs.
Count the codes in a pattern
Each letter place has 26 choices and each digit place has 10, so multiply. One letter and one digit give 26 × 10 = 260 codes. Two of each, such as KT48, give 67,600. Mixed order lets B7 come out as 7B too, which doubles 260 to 520.
What the look-alike switch leaves out
A hand-written O passes for 0, and I or a small l passes for 1. Tick Leave out look-alikes and I, L and O go, the same three that Crockford's Base32, an alphabet made to be read over a telephone, drops for that reason. All ten digits stay, so a round mark is always zero, and 260 codes become 230. Canada's postal codes, written A1A 1A1, skip D, F, I, O, Q and U.
Tips
- For a raffle, make the batch in one press and paste it twice: one column to hand out, one to cut up for the bowl. A new press draws from every code again, not only those you gave out.
- No repeats holds inside one press only: twenty codes like B7 drawn one at a time have a 53% chance of a match. Make one event's labels together.
- To mark work without names, draw one code per student, then match names to codes in the random pairing generator.
Questions and answers
Can I generate a random code for a login or a voucher here?
No. A random code here is a label for something you can see: a ticket, a seat, a jar. It is short, and it stays in the Made here list. A secret needs the opposite, and a program can list all 67,600 KT48-style codes in a moment.
Is this an alphanumeric character generator?
Yes. Alphanumeric means letters and digits together, up to eight of each. In Mixed order they land in any place: two letters and two digits can come out as K4T9, 7QM2 or 38DW. With three or more letters, read the batch before you share it: random letters now and then spell a word.
Why use random codes and not 1, 2, 3?
Numbers in a row give things away. Ticket 214 tells the buyer that at least 214 were sold, and a cup marked A or 1 in a taste test can read as first place. K4 says nothing about order or rank.