A video demonstration of this shortcut is available here (reddit, /shortcuts).

Important Caveat

This shortcut, SF Symbol for vCard Menu uses the Create Icon action included in Toolbox Pro. This action requires the Toolbox Pro Premium in-app purchase.

Toolbox Pro is an amazing utility for the Shortcuts app. If you develop shortcuts, do yourself a big favor and install it today. You'll be amazed how it extends the capability of your shortcuts. Many of the additional actions it provides are free, but as mentioned above some require an in-app purchase.

Purpose

The purpose of this shortcut is to generate encoded photos suitable for shortcut vCard menus. All photos are based off one of the 1500+ Apple SF Symbols thanks to the Toolbox Pro Create Icon action.

To create a vCard menu, the encoded photo that this shortcut generates can be pasted into the location indicated below (in a Text action).

BEGIN:VCARD
VERSION:3.0
N;CHARSET=utf-8:Main Text For Item 1;;;;
ORG:Optional sub text for the 1st menu item;
PHOTO;ENCODING=b:_ENCODED PHOTO INSERTED HERE_
END:VCARD

Since the encoded photo is a very long string of text characters, it is more partical to paste the text into a Dictionary action Text value and then reference that dictionary value in Text action. See below for an example.

Application

If you are going to create a shortcut only for yourself and you have made the Toolbox Pro Premium purchase to activate the premium actions (IMHO well worth the nominal cost), the Create Menu action would be the quickest and easiest way to create vCard-style menus. In fact, it appears that the Toolbox Pro author, Alex Hay, is planning to add some additional menu features.

However, if you plan to create and share a shortcut and you can't be certain that the users will have purchased Toolbox Pro Premium, then the approach discussed in the previous section should be used. This is when SF Symbol for vCard Menu becomes useful.

Instructions

The operation of SF Symbol for vCard Menu is simple:

• Choose one of the Apple SF Symbols. (Or type any of the 1,500+ SF Symbol names.)
• Choose one of the thirty-two iOS 13 Colors for the SF Symbol.
• Choose one of the thirty-two iOS 13 Colors for the background.
• Preview the SF Symbol created.
• The encoded SF Symbol will be automatically written to the iOS Clipboard.

Using the Encoded Photo

After exiting SF Symbol for vCard Menu, the value in the clipboard can be pasted into a shortcut that includes a vCard menu. Below is such a shortcut named vCard Menu Example.

Adding to the SF Symbol Menu

As mentioned above, SF Symbol names can be typed after selecting [ Type any SF Symbol name ]. However, if there are certain SF Symbols that you use often that are not included on the SF Symbol Menu, you can add them by modifying a Dictionary action that appears near the top of this shortcut. Just be aware, however, that if you reinstall or update SF Symbol names you will loose those additions and need to add them back after the install/update.

Resources

When SF Symbol for vCard Menu is opened it renders a menu that gives you quick access to this help and links to Apple and 3rd party SF Symbols information.

Shortcut Development and Acknowledgments

• Some of data used in this shortcut was generated using another shortcut named SF Symbol Utility.

• SF Symbol for vCard Menu is available exclusively at RoutineHub.co. Versions obtained elsewhere might be out-of-date.

• The framed screenshots were created using the shortcut Apple Frames (iOS) from the MacStories Shortcuts Archive.

• SF Symbol for vCard Menu checks for updates of itself every 7 days using Embed-a-Update (Version: 1.1.2, Updated: 10/13/19).