Unfortunately or fortunately we are still far from a paper-less world, no more paper, with only digital documents. However, it is possible to create a digital version of documents and books written on sheets of paper with a smartphone, acquiring it as you do with a scanner connected to a computer
There are applications, both for iPhone and for Android, that scan documents like a scanner does, using the mobile phone camera and converting images into digital files, PDF or even editable files (with OCR technology) .
There are many applications of this type and in this post we see the best apps to scan or scan documents and photos, free, on iPhone and for Android .
READ ALSO: Recognize and extract text from image with OCR apps
1) The first app to try on Android and iPhone is Google Drive which, among many things, also provides an OCR function to scan written documents and sheets of paper in order to make them editable from the phone. From the application, just press the + button at the top and choose to create a new document from a photo . The file is converted into a Google document and, if the photo is readable and recognizable by the Google Drive OCR engine, the sheet of paper will be viewable online in Google Docs converted into a digital file to download in PDF.
2) Google Keep can be used to transcribe the texts photographed effectively, even if it is different from Google Drive and is more to be used for storing notes.
3) The File app on iPhone, from iOS version 13, includes the document scanning function. Previously, this tool was accessible only through the Notes app, while it is now also included in File, making it easy to scan and save documents in digital format. To use the scanner on iPhone, then, open the File app and then tap the horizontal ellipsis icon (three dots) in the upper right corner to find the Document Scan . Photographed documents are saved in PDF formats.
As mentioned, the iPhone Notes app also has the scanner function which is found by touching the camera icon
4) Office Lens for iPhone, Android and Windows is an OCR scanner that transforms each written sheet into an editable file with Word or Powerpoint. Office Lens is a phenomenal application, a must try.
5) Adobe Scan, for Android and for iPhone is a very effective free 2017 app to scan documents from your smartphone. To use Adobe Scan, you only need to register an Adobe account and then photograph a paper document and convert it into a PDF document. The text is automatically made editable and searchable thanks to the optical character recognition (OCR). The documents acquired and converted to PDF are saved online in the Adobe cloud and can obviously be sent via email or with Whatsapp. The app has no advertising.
READ ALSO: Scan photos with Google Fotoscan for Android and iPhone
6) Genius Scan, available for Android and iPhone, is a simple scanner app that takes photos of documents and sheets of paper to turn them immediately into PDF files with a single touch. The application highlights the text and makes it more prominent in the final image by optimizing the scan. Genius Scan also works very well for scanning old photos and bringing them to your computer.
7) Fast Scanner for Android and for iPhone is a very popular free app that transforms every mobile device into a scanner for documents, receipts, notes, invoices, business cards, whiteboards and other pieces of paper, to save them in digital format in PDF or JPG.
8) Evernote, the clipboard app for Android and iPhone, supports text scanning. For iPhone Evernote also provides the Scannable app, for scanning documents.
9) ScanWritr is a simple and powerful application for Android that transforms the smartphone's camera into a scanner and allows you to photograph documents to turn them into PDF. The photo of a sheet of paper is optimized and can be reworked to make the written text easy to read.
10) ClearScan is a popular and free app to have a portable scanner on every Android smartphone capable of converting files to PDF format, adding annotations, synchronizing and archiving invoices, contracts, bank statements and every document. works with any type of document in your office, images, invoices, receipts, books, magazines, class notes and more that can be instantly converted to PDF or JPEG format.
11) DocScan for iPhone, provides a tool that transforms the phone's camera into a professional document scanner, with excellent image rendering and readability of written texts, capable of saving each document in PDF and uploading it online to Dropbox, on Facebook, Google Drive or other storage services.
12) PDF Document Scanner is similar to CamScanner, only for Android, where the image can be better adjusted to emphasize the text of the scanned documents.
The scans are saved in PDF format.
13) Two other Android applications that transform your mobile phone into a scanner to save documents in digital PDF format are:
- Kamera 2 PDF Scanner
14) Two other free apps to turn iPhone into portable scanner are:
- Filescanner very rich in functions, also with OCR and text recognition.
- TinyScan that digitizes PDF documents saving them on the mobile phone memory quickly and easily.
15) Other apps for iPhone, but for a fee, are: Professional Pro Scanner at 5 Euros and TurboScan, easy and automatic at 1.50 Euros.
16) CamScanner for Android and for iPhone is an excellent application to scan pages of books or sheets of documents and create a PDF from the mobile phone, which transforms the smartphone into a real scanner with different editing options to customize the appearance of the digitized documents such as receipts or receipts. Note: In 2019 CamScanner was caught with malware inside the application, compromising its credibility and ending up at the bottom of this list.
READ ALSO: Best programs to use the Scanner with Windows PC
