How to scan a document to PDF with your phone
Open Scan, take a photo of each page, check the corners it found, choose Black and white or Colour, and press Make the PDF.
Scan a documentFree. Nothing is uploaded.
How to do it
- Open Scan and take a photo of each page, or choose photos you already took.
- Check the round handles sit on the corners of the paper, and drag any that do not.
- Choose Colour, Grey or Black and white.
- Choose A4, Letter or As photographed for the page size.
- Press Make the PDF and save or share it.
What Scan does to each photo
It finds the sheet of paper in the photo, straightens it so the edges are square even if you held the phone at an angle, cuts away the table around it and evens out the light. Black and white turns the paper white and the writing crisp, and survives a shadow across the page.
Getting a good photo
Put the paper on a darker surface, so its edges stand out. Hold the phone above the page rather than at a steep angle, and avoid your own shadow. Daylight beats flash, which leaves a bright patch.
After scanning
A scan is a picture of words, so you cannot search or copy them yet. Make searchable reads the words and lays them invisibly over the page. For an upload with a size limit, Compress it; a black and white scan is usually small already.
When a corner is wrong
Scan looks for the largest bright patch in each photo and its four corners, which is right for paper on a table. It can be fooled by a white table, a second sheet in the frame, or paper that curls at the edges. When a handle is off, drag it to the real corner of the sheet; Find the page again asks it to look afresh. Whatever lies inside the four handles becomes the page, straightened.
A worked example
You need to send a signed three-page rent agreement to your landlord tonight. Lay page one on a dark table near a window and photograph it from straight above; do the same for pages two and three. Open Scan, add the three photos, check each page’s handles, choose Black and white and A4, and press Make the PDF. Open the result to check every page reads, then Share it.
Colour, Grey or Black and white
Black and white suits most paperwork and makes shadows and yellowed paper disappear. It can lose faint pencil, light stamps and photographs, so choose Grey when a page has a photo or a pale seal. Choose Colour when the colour itself matters: a blue ink signature an office wants to see, a coloured stamp, a chart, or a certificate with a hologram. Colour makes the biggest file of the three.
Questions people ask
Which look should I choose?
Black and white for letters, forms and printed pages. Grey if there are photos. Colour if stamps, signatures in blue ink or coloured marks matter.
Are my photos uploaded?
No. Every photo is straightened and cleaned in your browser, on your phone.
Can I scan many pages into one PDF?
Yes. Add all the photos; each becomes one page, in the order listed.
Is it as good as a real scanner?
For everyday paperwork it is usually close enough that offices accept it. A flatbed scanner still wins for photographs and very fine print, because a phone photo is never perfectly flat or evenly lit.
Can I fix a page that came out sideways?
Yes. Turn it with the page’s turn button before you make the PDF, or afterwards in Organise pages.
Does scanning use mobile data?
No. The photos are straightened and cleaned on your phone and nothing is sent anywhere, so it works the same on a slow connection or none.
Your file stays on your device. Foolscap does the work inside your browser, so nothing is uploaded and there is nothing for anyone to keep. How you can check