Introduction
Smartphones and tablets are equipped with high-resolution cameras that can quickly scan and convert any paper documents to PDF. Sometimes you don’t have a dedicated scanner and need to convert a paper document quickly to PDF. What should you do? You can download Free Mobile Pdf Scanner app for IOS & Android from the App Store or Google Play Store. They have different features that will meet your demands.
It is possible to scan receipts, notes on a whiteboard or sketches on an envelope while on the road. The best apps can take a picture, do text recognition, save to the cloud, and much more.
Mobile scanning and OCR apps that are the best have an automatic scanning function that automatically scans text and detects edges. This feature is available in all the apps on this list and it is enabled by default. The app scans whatever you place in front of the camera on your phone without you needing to tap a button (Microsoft OfficeLens is the exception). It is trivial to not tap a button, but it makes the camera more stable and sharper. Auto-scan is therefore a very desirable feature in Free Mobile Pdf Scanner app.
Here are five top Free mobile PDF scanner apps for getting the job done.
QuickScan App
Top Pick for Free Mobile Pdf Scanner app
QuickScan app is the best document scanning app with OCR mobile application. It went through the entire scanning process quickly, sometimes at a pace that was so rapid that it was almost impossible to keep up. AutoScan and auto-enhancement features are noteworthy in this free mobile scanner app. It also did OCR at lightning speed. It was also able to detect edges in almost all of my test scans. By tapping the tabs at top of the screen, you can toggle between the OCR rendering and the original scan.
QuickScan App’s OCR text overlays on the original scan so that you can see what’s missing or incorrect. This is a great feature. There are a few options available when you want to do something with your scan. The app allows you to print directly. Any scan can be saved as an image, text, or both to email, Apple Messages, iCloud or any other supported app. You can also copy all text from any scan in the Text view.
QuickScan offers several scanning modes, including Document, Whiteboard, Business Card, Photo, and Document for those who want to scan anything other than writing. You can share the file with another app, save the image locally and print it. There are also options to work with other Microsoft products. You can save files in PDFs, OneNote notes and PowerPoint decks. Also, you can share them to Outlook or another email program.
Microsoft Office Lens
A Simple Free Mobile Pdf Scanner app
OfficeLens by Microsoft can scan images with text and run OCR. However, it is only compatible with Word and OneDrive. All the apps require a Microsoft account. OCR processing is not done in OfficeLens. To get the text, save the image to OneDrive as a.docx and then open it in Word (mobile, web, or desktop) to view it. Although you won’t have the same ease and convenience as OCR and mobile scanning apps, it might be worth the effort to open the file in Word (mobile app, web app or desktop app) to get the text. It’s also completely free.
The final product of the book pages test impressed me. Word opened the file and I was able to see complete paragraphs with no mistakes. Word was able to convert three pages from scanned documents into nine pages, with large swathes between sections. However, the overall quality of the pages was excellent. The table was almost perfect. The OCR failed to render some text areas, so Microsoft substituted a clip from the image. This is a great way to save time and avoid having to compare the incorrectly digitized text with the original.
CamScanner
A Popular Mobile PDF Scanner App
CamScanner can scan and share documents. The app scans paper documents like receipts, invoices, and notes into PDF format. The app has auto enhancing and smart cropping features that ensure high quality PDFs.
The home screen of the app displays a list of items that you have scanned. You can view the PDF contents by clicking on an item. You can search for PDFs by clicking on the magnifying glasses at the top of the screen. Click on the camera icon at the bottom to take a picture. Clicking the gear icon when you take a picture will allow you to select options such as grid, flash and sound, sound, spirit level or image orientation. You can choose between single or multiple pages. The app detects the border of the document after you take a picture. You can then choose from different modes such as auto, original lighten, magic colour, gray mode and black and white. You can also rotate the photo to the right or left. You can also adjust the contrast, brightness, and details.
AdobeScan
An Overall Free Mobile Scanner App
Adobe Scan is one of the most popular scanner apps. The app can automatically sharpen documents, photos, receipts and business cards for clarity. OCR allows you to create PDFs that work with Adobe Acrobat Reader or similar products.
The enhancement tools allow you to crop, rotate and adjust the colors. Your scans can be saved to Adobe Document Cloud. You can also access, share, highlight and add notes as well as perform a search. You can save files in several formats including JPG or PDF.
You can also subscribe to the Adobe PDF Pack monthly via in-app purchase if you wish to do more with your scans. You can combine files, rearrange them, export PDF scans into Microsoft Word or PowerPoint files, as well as fill in and sign forms. Cloud storage is also available up to 20GB.
Swiftscan
A Barcode Mobile Scanner App
SwiftScan, a document scanner that also has a QR code scanner and a barcode scanner built in, is a great choice. SwiftScan, like the other apps listed here can scan nearly anything. You can scan documents, notes and whiteboards as well as business cards. You can save scans as a JPG, PDF or both and then use the OCR to search. However, accuracy was poor. It failed to recognize handwritten numbers and print everywhere was faded.
SwiftScan allows you to scan multiple pages of documents, annotate and edit them, and add color and filters. There are many cloud services you can connect to, including iCloud Drive and Dropbox, Google Drive and Box, Evernote, Slack and Todoist.
Premium version offers unlimited scans, electronic signatures and watermark removal. It also includes automatic uploads, multipage uploads, OCR, and other features.
Conclusion
You don’t need to carry around a bunch of crumpled paper or risk losing chalkboard notes if they are erased. You now have a smartphone.
If you own a smartphone, you don’t even need a scanner! These apps for Android and iOS make scanning easy.