Paper documents are great to have on hand for posterity but sharing them and ensuring they are kept safe is best done by making a digital copy. Instead of using a traditional scanner, you could save time, power, and energy by having any of the free HD scanner apps on your phone which can easily access your camera and scan your documents.
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What Do HD Scanner Apps Do?
The best document scanning apps can help you transition to a paperless office. You can literally scan anything from work invoices to receipts, and the beauty of scanning apps is not just that they create a PDF copy, but also give you options to send them wherever you need to and also save the document on the scanner.
How Do HD Scanner Apps Work?
To scan a document with your smartphone, all you have to do is simply download a mobile app on your smartphone for the purpose of scanning. These apps can convert text documents to PDF files. There are a vast variety of apps from which you can choose from but they all have the same basic features, work in the same way and produce the same results.
All you have to do is to place the document you want to scan on a flat surface where there is bright and direct lighting on it. Open the app for scanning which you have installed on your phone, then follow the instructions given.
You would normally be required to take a picture of the document you want to scan. The document would then be saved as an image or a PDF file on your device. Afterward, you can now forward the scanned document to anyone either via email or social media. You can also leave the document on your phone for future purposes.
Here are some free HD scanner apps from which you can look and select.
10 Best Free HD Scanner Apps
#1. Adobe Scan
There are hundreds of free scanning apps, Adobe Scan has been ranked number one. With it, you have a very effective scanner at your reach every time. It is very easy to use, capable of very sharp image quality, and equipped with excellent text recognition capabilities. It is also completely free, even for iOS users.
With Adobe Scan, you can easily capture and convert documents, forms, business cards, and whiteboards into high-quality Adobe PDFs.
It has a powerful AI which corrects images perspectives and sharpens handwritten or printed text while removing elements like a shadow.
After scanning, you can upload the scanned document to your favorite apps with just a tap. It is also generally known to be very fast.
To get Adobe Scan, click here
#2. Swift Scan
Swift Scan is one of the easiest and fastest ways to create high-quality scans with your iPhone, iPad, or Android. With Swift Scan, you can scan anything ranging from documents to receipts to whiteboards, QR Codes, barcodes, and sketchbooks, amongst others. The app has up to 5 different color modes which you can select from to make your scan look exactly how you want it.
Swift Scan has encryption that protects your documents and privacy, ensuring that no data in your documents would be sent to any 3rd party, including the text recognition done directly on the device or app.
Swift Scan also has a variety of options for places where you can upload your scanned documents. There are options like iCloud for iOS, Dropbox, Slack, OneDrive, OneNote, Box, Google Drive, and Todoist, amongst others.
The documents you scanned are saved as PDFs or JPGs. Swift Scan supports all your major cloud services and remembers your last folders, making it easy to upload a document with just a tap.
To get Swift Scan, click here
#3. Genius Scan
Genius scan is another free brilliant app for scanning your documents. It has smart algorithms which automatically detect your document, apply perspective correction and enhance the colors. (https://fernandez-vega.com) Its output gives you a crisp and legible document.
After the scan, your paper document is digitized into a PDF file, looking sharp and clean. A text layer is also added for indexing and searching. You can then add more pages, move pages around and merge documents together.
With Genius Scan, you can also send your documents wherever you wish to. This scanner app has received really high ratings. It has also been referred to as the fastest and easiest scanning app.
To get Genius Scan, click here
#4. Scanbot
Scanbot is a mobile scanning app that lets you create high-quality PDF scans and send them through email, upload them to the cloud, or leave them saved on your device. With Scanbot, you can easily scan any type of document.
This scanner is so much easier and faster than a conventional mobile scanner. It has features that are not only amazing but would save you valuable time.
In a normal mobile scanner, when scanning more than one page, after scanning a page, you have to tap ‘add page’ to scan another page but on Scanbot, all you have to do is just switch to ‘multiple pages’ mode by tapping the button in the top left corner and scan as fast as you can while flipping the pages as you go.
You can also scan documents at night using the ‘flash’ feature. That way, your document is still well illuminated, even in the dark.
Another redefining feature Scanbot has is it helps you with the naming scheme of the documents you want to scan.
Scanbot does the work by automatically naming the documents with a scheme you predefine. Scanbot also made provisions for security.
On the app, you can choose passcode lock and touch ID. That way, no one can get into your app without your permission.
Scanbot can also use your information directly from your scans. This is probably one of the most under-hyped features of the app.
All you have to do is to turn on the OCR, scan your documents and open the scan, switch to the text mode, and tap on ‘Actions’. When the dialog opens, you will see all the information that Scanbots OCR function extracted from the scan.
You can also browse your documents after you have scanned them with Scanbot and the OCR feature.
To get Scanbot, click here
#5. CamScanner:
CamScanner is a Chinese mobile app that was first released in 2011. The app is available free of charge on the Google Play Store and the Apple App Store.
With CamScanner, you can run a scanner application on your mobile phone. CamScanner creates high-quality PDF files by using your camera to take pictures of documents. It also has a feature that allows you to edit the scanned images on your mobile phone. With this scanner app, you can rotate, crop, and brighten the image before finally exporting it to your required destination.
However, CamScanner contains ads that can pop up at any time. While some of its features are free, others require in-app purchases on top of subscriptions. It can be used on Android and iOS.
To get CamScanner, click here
#6. Clear Scan:
This is largely known as one of the best scanning apps with hassle-free work that saves a huge amount of both time and money.
It is a free document scanner app that converts images to PDF or JPEG format with amazing features like ease of use, fast processing speeds as well as cloud support.
With Clear Scan, you can literally scan any kind of document like images, bills, receipts, books, magazines, and newspapers; the list is inexhaustive.
The app automatically detects the corner of the file that you want to scan. You can also edit and crop part of the document manually.
The app also automatically adjusts brightness, removes shadows, and straightens the images for a better scanning result.
After scanning, there are options for sharing the document immediately on mail, Dropbox, OneDrive, SkyDrive, Google Drive, Evernote, and others. There is also an option to print the scanned document over Cloud Print.
On ClearScan, there is also a feature that allows you to back up and restore your files in case you lose or change your device.
To get Clear Scan, click here
#7. Microsoft Office lens
Microsoft Office Lens is a free app on Android and iOS that allows users to scan in copies of documents, whiteboards, business cards, receipts, menus, signs, handwritten memos, or anything else containing text that you want to import but not manually type out yourself and input them into other applications.
The app consists of a camera, and the images scanned look great. The whiteboard feature also scans with high accuracy, but uncommon symbols and glare from light can affect it.
The Microsoft Office Lens also has the feature of searching for a scanned document. The app supports automatic alt text.
After taking a photo of the document you want to scan, the Microsoft Office lens automatically crops, straightens and adjusts the brightness of the document. You can also do this manually if you wish. The app is also good for capturing sketches, drawings, and equations, even images without text.
To get Microsoft Office Lens, click here
#8. Tiny Scanner
Tiny Scanner is available for both Android and iOS. It is one of the many free HD scanning apps. It stands out for its brave promise of turning your mobile phone into a ‘tiny scanner’ and saving your documents either as a photo or as a PDF. The scanner app is widely known to be lightning-fast as compared to other scanning apps.
The app requires a few permissions to access your camera, in-app purchases, wi-fi connection, and media, photos, and files. Tiny scanner has functions for you to select either black, white, or greyscale output. You can also adjust the contrast using the functions displayed on that same page.
All PDF documents created by the app are available on the program’s interface. On the Tiny Scanner app, you can also change the default page size. It also has the option of adding a passcode in other to protect your app from unauthorized access from other people or devices. The free version is perfect for both personal and business use.
To get Tiny Scanner, click here
#9. Fast Scanner
Fast Scanner is one of the free highly-rated HD scanner apps. It scans any type of documents ranging from receipts to multiple pages books. All scanned documents are exported as an industry-standard PDF file.
You can add new pages or delete existing pages within the PDF file. It has features that enable you to edit the scanned images for the purpose of making them legible.
With Fast Scanner, you can also extract text from your scanned documents and also upload them to cloud in case of loss. Fast Scanner has a smart algorithm and elegant processing.
To get Fast Scanner, click here
#10. Document scanner
Document scanner is one of the very first free HD mobile scanner apps. It has features that lets you digitize all kinds of documents in just a click. It also has smart cropping which helps you scan your paper quickly.
It also has a feature that enables you to categorize your scanned documents. Furthermore, the document scanner app allows you to send your scanned files via email or upload them to the cloud. You can choose between DropBox or Google Drive to store your documents.
It is however built just for android. It is also generally known to be slow.
To get Document Scanner, click here
Conclusion
The mobile phones we own wield a lot of power helping us run our day-to-day activities in less cumbersome ways. It saves time and frustration. One of the free HD scanner apps is something you need to have on your phone in case you run into any emergencies tomorrow.
References
- edu.gcfglobal.org – Scanning documents with a smartphone
- www.google.com – The Best Mobile Scanning Apps
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