How to Scan Documents to PDF With Your Phone Camera, in the Browser
You're at the bank, they want a copy of a document you have on paper, and there's no scanner in sight. Or you're filing receipts at home and the printer's scanner died years ago. A phone photo is close, but it's crooked, shadowy and full of table. Scan to PDF turns those photos into something that looks scanned: straightened, cropped, cleaned up and combined into a single PDF.
How it straightens a page
Paper is usually lighter than the surface it's on. The tool looks for the largest light area in the photo and takes its four corners. It then corrects the perspective, so a page shot at an angle becomes a clean rectangle, and crops away the background.
For the look, you choose:
- Black and white compares each pixel with its surroundings, which removes shadows and makes text crisp. It also produces the smallest files.
- Greyscale and colour stretch the contrast so faded pages pop.
Steps
- Press Take a photo of a page, or choose photos you already have. On a computer it opens a file picker instead of a camera.
- Check the outline on each page. If the edge detection missed, drag a corner onto the real corner of the paper, or choose Use the whole photo.
- Reorder or remove pages, then pick the look and page size.
- Press Save as PDF.
- Optionally press Make it searchable to open OCR PDF with the scan already loaded.
Getting good edge detection
Edge finding works best with contrast: a white page on a dark table, wooden desk or floor. A white page on a white bedsheet confuses it. Some other tips:
- Shoot from above and keep all four corners in the frame.
- Avoid harsh lamp glare on glossy paper.
- Keep your hand and phone shadow out of the shot; black-and-white mode handles soft shadows, but a hard shadow across text can still swallow letters.
Which look for which document
- Forms, letters, printed contracts: black and white. Clean and small.
- Documents with coloured stamps or signatures, like notarised papers: colour, so the blue ink and red seal are obvious.
- Old, faded receipts: greyscale, which brings up faint print without the harshness of pure black and white.
A real example
Rent agreement, eight pages, needed by HR for an HRA claim. Photograph all eight on the dining table, check the outlines (usually one or two need a corner nudged), pick black and white, save. Then press Make it searchable so HR can search for the rent amount. Total time: a few minutes, and the result looks better than most office scanners.
Why not just attach the photos?
Raw photos are big, often 3 to 5 MB each, and show half your kitchen table. Recipients have to rotate and zoom through them one by one. A cleaned-up PDF is smaller, opens as one document in the right order, prints properly on A4 or Letter, and looks like you took a bit of care. For anything official, that difference genuinely matters.
Privacy
The tool page states the photos stay in the tab and aren't uploaded or saved, and the camera is only used when you press Take a photo. Straightening, cleanup and the PDF are all done in the browser. There are Google ads on the page, as elsewhere on the site.
FAQ
Does it work on a phone? Yes, the camera opens on both Android and iPhone.
What if the edges are wrong? Drag the four corner handles, or use the whole photo as is.
Black and white or colour? Black and white for text, colour when stamps or signatures need to show in colour.
Can I make it searchable? Yes, Make it searchable sends the file to OCR PDF, which reads English or Hindi.
Leave the scanner hunting for another day. Scan to PDF works from your phone.
— Alok Kumar Singh