Guide · 2 min read
How to scan documents with your phone and get clean results
Get sharp scans with your phone: light, background, framing, and how to turn the photos into a clean multi-page PDF.
Hardly anyone has a scanner at home these days, and you don't need one: your phone can give equally good results if you get three things right. Here's how to scan a contract, a receipt or some notes properly.
1. Light
- Look for natural light or a lamp that lights the whole page evenly.
- Don't use the flash: it creates glare and a bright spot in the middle.
- Avoid your own shadow or your phone's shadow falling on the paper.
2. Background
Place the paper on a dark, plain surface, like a dark wooden table or a black folder. The contrast between white paper and a dark background lets the edges be detected automatically and the page cropped precisely.
3. Framing
- Hold your phone parallel to the paper, directly above it, not tilted.
- Leave a little margin around the page: it's better to see all of it.
- Wait for the camera to focus on the text before taking the photo.
From photos to PDF
- Open Scan with your phone and tap “Take photo or choose”. The camera will open.
- Check that the corners have snapped to the edges of the paper; if not, drag them.
- Choose an enhancement: “Document” removes shadows and whitens the background; “Black & white” is ideal for text.
- Add the remaining pages with “Add page” and tap “Create PDF”.
Tip: If the document is long and you want to search for words or copy text, run the PDF through the OCR tool afterwards: it recognizes the text and makes it selectable.
What about your phone's built-in apps?
iPhones have a scanner in the Notes and Files apps, and on Android it's built into Google Drive. They work well and are a good option. Pagelo is useful if you'd rather not store your documents in the cloud, if you want to choose the enhancement, or if you need to keep working on the PDF: compress, sign or protect it.