How to Scan Documents into PDF on Notes App

by Rian

I understand there are good scanning apps available on the App Store, but their life-time licenses are not competitively priced to that of specialized scanners for going paperless. One such brand known for book scanners and included scanning suite is Czur, and its scanner starts as low as $99 on Amazon; whereas, some of the popular scanning apps I could had monthly or annual subscriptions attached to it. If you scan documents on a regular basis, I would recommend investing on a good scanner and the suite.

For those of us who need it once only so often, and the material so happens to be non-standard size papers that won’t fit nicely on standard scanners like receipts, there is a way to achieve this without a subscription on iOS. Notes app comes with basic scanning features.

1. On Notes app, start by either creating a new note or open an existing note.
2. Tap the attachment icon (paperclip), and select Scan Documents.
3. Camera will automatically focus on the documents and crop out the background.
4. Once done, it will also automatically capture the page.
5. Repeat until you have scanned all the pages.
   

The result will be in PDF file attachment on a note. You can send the file over AirDrop, email, or let it sync over the cloud. OCR on iOS and macOS will let you select texts, but it won’t convert the PDF into a searchable file. For that, you would need more advanced tools. While there are free options available, the quality of OCR may vary drastically.