Stayput Tools

How to scan documents with your phone, without an app

You do not need a scanner or a scanning app. A phone photo, taken the right way and cleaned up, makes a PDF that looks scanned. The cleaning is what turns a shadowy, slanted photo into something an office will accept.

Updated 2 min read

Taking a good photo

  • Put the page flat on a plain, darker surface, such as a table. The page edge is then easy to find.
  • Use even light. A window in front of you or a lamp above works; a lamp to one side makes a shadow of your phone and hand.
  • Hold the phone straight above the page, not at an angle, so the page keeps its shape.
  • Get all four corners in the picture, with a little table around the page.
  • Hold still for a second so the text is sharp. Tap the page on the screen to focus.

Cleaning it up

  1. Add the photos to Scan to PDF, one per page, in order.
  2. Look at each page. The edges are found automatically; if a corner is off, drag it onto the corner of the page.
  3. Pick a look. Clean colour whitens the paper and keeps colours; Black and white gives crisp, small files, best for text; Grey keeps shading.
  4. Press Make PDF. Check the result, then download it.

Making it small enough to upload

Exam, bank and job portals often limit a file to 200 KB or 500 KB. Black and white gives the smallest pages. If the PDF is still too big, use Compress PDF to a size, which fits the file under the limit you give it.

What a scan cannot do

The PDF holds pictures of the pages, so its text cannot be searched or copied until it is read with OCR (optical character recognition). Run it through OCR PDF to make it searchable. If a form must be filled in rather than just sent, ask for the form as a PDF you can type into, or use Sign PDF to add text and a signature on top of the scan.

Your photos are processed in your browser and are never uploaded, which is the right way to handle an ID card or a certificate.

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