1. Notes App (Preinstalled)
The Notes app that comes pre-loaded on your iPhone has a fully-functional document scanning feature. Even though it is really basic, you can easily scan a document, trim the edges to make it square, and share it as a PDF. Simply long-press the Notes app icon on your Home Screen and select ‘Scan Document’. The good thing about using this app is that you can add documents to the PDF anywhere in the future, which makes it convenient to supplement a document. However, you can not annotate PDFs with this app.
2. Adobe Scan
While the Notes app is good, you need a better-designed app to scan documents professionally if you want to scan documents for work. Adobe Scan offers a dedicated Camera interface to scan different kinds of documents. You can scan business cards, letter stock, forms, whiteboard, and normal documents by sliding the option and the app would automatically recognize the edges and capture the document. You can even scan a batch of documents in one go. The app also has an option to reorder, crop, rotate, color, resize, and even clean up your documents. After polishing your document, you can save it as a PDF on your iPhone. There are no fancy subscriptions or purchases and you can just start using the app right away. It’s available on the App Store for free which makes it one of the best scanning apps for iPhones. Get Adobe Scan (free)
3. Scanner Pro by Readdle
Scanner Pro is an advanced scanning app for the iPhone developed with professionals in mind. Along with the ability to scan documents and enhance the contrast, the app also lets you convert the print text into editable text using OCR. Not just that, it supports more than 25 languages which makes it handy for extracting text from documents in different languages. You can edit the generated PDF by scanning multiple documents, add annotations, and rename the file. The good thing about Scanner Pro is that it lets you save all your work on iCloud which can be then synced to all your Apple devices. Scanner Pro is a paid app with a subscription price of $25/year and you can check the app out with a seven-day free trial. However, if you don’t care for those advanced features, you can get Scanner Mini that essentially does the same job as Scanner Pro but costs only $3.99 as a one-time purchase. Get Scanner Pro (free, in-app purchase)
4. Scanner App
Scanner App is an immensely popular app for scanning documents and it bundles a lot of features that make this app worthwhile. The camera interface is customized to capture IDs, passports, documents, etc. and the app automatically detects the borders of a page and scans the document instantly. The name is so unintuitive though. Along with standard editing tools such as brightness adjustment, OCR, edge-straighten, etc, the signature feature stands out. As you can create a digital signature and effectively sign the documents on the go. Scanner app is a subscription-based app that offers a lot of intuitive features for $3.99/mo. Get Scanner App (free, in-app purchase)
5. PhotoScan
PhotoScan is an interesting scanner app for iPhone by Google that instead of scanning documents, lets you scan your pictures and polaroids. If you’ve ever tried to capture a polaroid on your iPhone, you would know how much glare you get in the final result. This app applies computational magic and lets you digitize those moments effectively without any glare whatsoever. It works by capturing the picture from different sides/angles and stitches it together to make a flawless picture. The app is free and doesn’t have any in-app purchases. Get PhotoScan (free)
6. Text Capture
Text Capture is the app to get when you just want to scan documents for the text. Using OCR, this scanning app for iPhone extracts all print text from a document and converts it into editable text. It would come in handy while digitizing your notes. You can either capture an image using the iPhone camera or select any picture saved on the device. Once you have the text, you can have it read to you by the app, translated to a different language, edited to fix errors, copied to the clipboard, and shared with other devices. Text Capture is free but you would need to unlock the features with a one-time purchase of $2.99. Get Text Capture (free, $2.99)
Which are the Best Scanning Apps for iPhone?
These were a few of the best scanning apps for iPhone that you can use to scan documents, extract and edit text, create PDF files, annotate them, and even work with images. Be it a document, an ID, or an old photograph, you can find an app on the list. For instance, you can use Text Capture to extract text from a print document and copy it to your iPhone and computer, PhotoScan lets you digitize photos, and Scanner is a multipurpose document scanner for professionals. Which app do you use the most? Let me know on Twitter.
