Maybe you have a flatbed scanner at home or maybe one of those “all-in-one” printers/scanners/copiers, but did you know that your smartphone’s camera can also double as a flatbed scanner?
Not only is it quick and convenient to scan something when you’re away from your computer, but the quality is surprisingly good, thanks to much better camera sensors and smarter software.
Your iPhone or Android device is also ideal for digitizing old photos (in picture frames, albums or hanging on the wall), documents (menus, contracts, vaccination certificate), notes, business cards, whiteboards and receipts (great for expense tracking or reimbursement) – and then save these images for when you need them or send them to someone else, if you prefer, via email or text.
Obviously a “scan” really means taking a “picture” of what you’re pointing the camera at, but the technology can go further than that.
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In addition to adding color and light correction to photos, today’s phones also feature “OCR” technology, which stands for “optical character recognition,” which can translate typed (and even handwritten) words into editable and searchable text.
Without OCR, when you scan a newspaper article for example, it will be saved as an image file on your phone, but you won’t be able to search for a keyword or send specific phrases to a friend from within the article.
Here’s how to get started.
For iPhone users
Here’s how to use the Notes app to scan documents and photos, and even add a handwritten signature with your fingertip.
- Open the Notes app and create a new note (or select an existing one)
- Tap the camera button at the bottom of the screen and select Scan Documents (yes, even if it’s a photo).
- Place everything you scan in your document within view of the camera. If your machine is in automatic mode, your document will be scanned automatically. If you need to manually capture a scan, tap the shutter button to scan (or one of the volume buttons).
- Drag the corners to fit the scan to the page, then tap Keep scan.
Once you’ve scanned a photo, you’ll also see some editing options at the bottom of your iPhone screen, such as cropping, adjusting the color and exposure, adding a filter (like black and white), and more. Tap Done, followed by Save.
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(But keep in mind that this will stay in your Notes folder. If you’re digitizing a paper photo, it’s probably better to open the camera and take the photo and you’ll have a lot more editing and sharing options.)
Sign a form with your iPhone
If the document you scanned is required to be signed, such as a waiver to swim in a public pool, follow these additional steps:
- Open the Notes app, then tap the document in the note.
- Tap the Share button, which is located in the top right corner of your screen and looks like a square with an arrow pointing up. Tap the Marker icon.
- Use your fingertip (or a stylus) to sign wherever you want. You can use your fingers to zoom in and out on the document before drawing. There are several pen and highlight options to select at the bottom of the screen, if you like.
- Tap Done when you’re done.
If you want to see this in action I made one short Twitter video show you how to do this.
Using iPhone to Digitize Text
One of my favorite iPhone tricks is using the camera to instantly (and accurately) import text, as I demonstrate here.
For example, let’s say you’re flipping through a cookbook and see something you want to make for dinner. Instead of manually typing out the ingredients you need to buy at the grocery store, the text is instantly imported into your Notes app when you hover your iPhone camera over the recipe.
Here’s how:
- Open the Notes app, tap to start a new note.
- Tap the camera icon above the virtual keyboard and select Scan Text.
- Hover your iPhone camera over the text you want to capture (see the actual cookbook on the bottom third of the screen) and watch the words appear in the Notes app (the top two-thirds of the screen).
- Tap Done when you’re done.
Digitize text with an Android phone
Android users, on the other hand, can use the Google Drive app built into the phone to scan documents, but use the Camera app to digitize text with OCR (see below).
If you don’t see the Google Drive icon on your home screen, which looks like a colorful triangle, just search for the word “drive” and it will appear.
How to use Android for regular documents:
- Open the Google Drive app and tap Add (the big plus sign) at the bottom right.
- Tap the Scan icon.
- Now take a photo of the document you want to scan.
- To adjust the scan area, tap Crop (bottom right icon) and move the blue dots wherever you want (like cropping the top of a desk behind the document you’re scanning).
- If it’s a multi-page document you’re scanning and you want them all to be part of a single PDF document, tap the Add (“+”) icon again to scan more pages, or tap the checkmark to upload the document to Google Drive. (Each Google account starts with 15 gigabytes of free storage — shared by Google Drive, Gmail, and Google Photos — but you can always pay for more or choose to download your scans and save them to your phone’s memory, if you’re that you want.)
- Tap Done to save the completed document.
Digitize text with an Android phone
- Open your Camera app and point the phone at a document.
- As you do this, the phone recognizes that it is a document, such as a contract or business card, and adds yellow highlighted borders along with a “Scan” icon on the right side of the screen.
- Select the words Tap to Scan and you will be prompted to draw the corners of the image to crop it. Tap the Save option.
If you don’t see this option, open the Camera app’s Settings and choose Scene Optimization to make sure the “Scan Documents” option is enabled.
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