Understanding Your iPhone's Document Scanning Features

Native Document Scanning Capability

The phenomenal strides in technology have turned the humble, ubiquitous smartphone into a veritable Swiss army knife of capabilities, one of which is document scanning. This is particularly true for the iPhone, which comes with a built-in document scanner in the Notes app. Users no longer need a traditional flatbed scanner or a dedicated scanning app. All you need is your iPhone and the pre-installed Notes app which is highly capable and intuitive. Moreover, it allows you to scan a document directly into a note and even offers options to edit the scan.

Scanning with Third-Party Apps

While the in-built scanner in the Notes apps is efficient and handy, there are a plethora of third-party apps available that come with an extended variety of scanning features. Some well-known examples include Adobe Scan, Scanbot, and CamScanner. These apps provide users with greater flexibility and control over the scanning process, such as OCR (Optical Character Recognition) for creating editable text from a scanned document, high-resolution scans, and more. Choosing the right app depends on your specific requirements.

Scanning Photos

Is it a photograph that you need to scan? iPhones come incorporated with an excellent camera, which can be smartly used to snap high-quality images of photos, thereby serving the purpose of a scanner. However, to turn these images into a better scanned document, free or paid apps like PhotoScan by Google, Pic Scanner, or Photomyne can be useful. They offer features like glare reduction, edge detection, and color correction to make the scanned images look print-ready.

How to Scan Documents with Your iPhone

Scanning with Notes App

Scanning a document with the Notes app is surprisingly easy. Open the app and create a new note, then tap the camera button and select ‘Scan Documents.’ Position your document and the app will automatically capture the page. You're given the opportunity to adjust the scan area and the option to save it in color, grayscale, or black and white. If you have a multi-page document, continue this process until you've scanned all pages. Once you're done, simply hit ‘Save’ to securely store your scanned documents.

Scanning with Third-Party Apps

The method to scan documents with a third-party app vastly depends on the app itself, though they are generally intuitive to use. Most involve opening the app, allowing camera access, and simply pointing your device's camera toward the document you wish to scan. Similar to the Notes app, these apps normally auto-detect the document edges and present options for you to refine the scan before saving or sharing the scanned document.

Scanning Photos

If you’re scanning a photograph using your iPhone camera, make sure you’re in a well-lit area and hold your iPhone directly above the photo to avoid any unnecessary angles or distortion. Using a scanning app, however, will typically yield better results. Open your preferred photo scanning app, allow it to access your camera, and follow the on-screen instructions. Most apps will guide you to position the photo within the frame, snap the picture, and adjust corners before saving the scanned photo.

Editing and Sharing Scanned Documents

Editing Scans

Once a document is scanned with the iPhone, whether it is through the Notes app, a third-party application, or a dedicated photo scanning app, most will provide options for editing the scanned document or photo. This can include cropping, adjusting color, adding filters, text, and highlights, or rotating the document.

Sharing Scanned Documents

What good is a scanned document if it can’t be easily shared? With the iPhone, sharing options are plentiful. In the Notes app, use the share button to send a scanned document via email, message, or even add it to your iCloud drive. And, if you are using third-party apps, they will have their own range of sharing options, often allowing sharing via social media, cloud storage, and more.

Saving and Organizing Scans

Saving and organizing your scanned documents is essential, especially when dealing with multiple documents. Fortunately, the Notes app lets you store scans directly within individual notes, allowing for easy organization. For apps like Adobe Scan, Scanbot, and Camscanner, they come with dedicated file systems, allowing the creation of folders and tags, making it easy to categorize and retrieve scanned documents in the future.