Scanning Documents with Your Android Phone

1. Introduction to Mobile Document Scanning

First of all, don't worry if you've come across this guide and still don't have a specific app in mind - that's what we're here for! There are many apps that can turn your Android phone into a scanner. The great thing here is that many of them are free - and of course, there are some really good paid ones. Because paid apps are usually a one-time fee, we recommend that you skip buying a free version of an app and purchase a standalone application that will serve you for years to come. What are scan-to-PDF apps useful for? Are they the best productivity tool an Android user can have? Yes, they are. Imagine you have a family photo in a photo album that no one can see because it's in a drawer somewhere in your house. If you scan it with your phone, you have the ability to sync and/or back it up. Now you can share them on social media and revisit the past from anywhere in the world. The more important aspect of scanning is definitely related to your professional life. Scanning important documents and having them available on all your devices can be very useful. The best aspect is that you can rest easy knowing that they are safe and sound in the cloud for as long as you need them.

2. Choosing the Right Scanning App

Once you've decided that using your smartphone is the best option for a quick scan job, the next part is deciding what scanning app to use. There are actually a lot of choices in the Google Play Store, and they all offer similar features. There are, of course, a few key differences that set each one apart from the other. Pricing is one of the major factors to consider, as you might be looking for a free app or a full-featured pro version. File formats supported can be another deal breaker. The ease of use and how the captured image is processed afterwards is also important to some users, as are the included features. This guide should help you through choosing the right scanning app.

If you are a business owner, you know how scanning documents can become such a hassle. Thankfully, technology has come a long way to create nifty little tools to get the job done. Surely, scanning a bunch of paperwork stacked on your desk is not my idea of fun, so here is a comprehensive guide on scanning documents with your device.

3. Optimizing Document Scanning Settings

Assuming that usually the document is placed at the center of the frame, you must set the camera focus to the center of the camera frame. This is because the camera will set the focus at the center of the frame. Locking the focus at the camera center position will make the scanning results still clear despite a slight camera movement during the scanning process. In the case of White Balance, Exposure, Color Effect, and Contrast, you just try them respectively because the optimal setting depends on your current environment (photograph lighting, document contents, etc.). To control these settings, you can directly refer to the standard Android camera application user guide available on the official Android developer website.

Regarding the camera resolution setting, usually, the default setting is the highest resolution supported by the camera. In general, with a higher resolution, your scanning result will be better, but your final image file will be larger. If you want to produce a smaller file, you can select a lower camera resolution, but usually, this option will provide an inferior quality of the scanning result. It is recommended that you select the highest resolution if you plan to print the scan results and use the lower resolution only if you plan to distribute the scan results electronically via the internet or email.

Before taking a scan, you can optimize several settings to produce a better-quality scan. Respectively, these settings include adjusting the camera resolution, setting the camera focus, selecting the white balance, adjusting the exposure according to the document exposure, selecting the color effect for the scan, and adjusting the image contrast.

4. Techniques for High-Quality Scans

Despite the good cameras on most smartphones, they are not spare parts for DSLR lenses. Get close to your document, but check if the document is nearly covering the screen. If it isn't, move slightly away from the document. If you have the manual control set to be always on, make sure that the document is in sharp focus.

If you're scanning text or line art, the default autofocus will probably get it right more times than not. But if you're scanning 3D objects or want better-than-average scan, use manual control. Tap the part of the document you want to come out sharply in focus. Some scanning apps might allow you to tweak this to lock it to that part of the image for subsequent captures.

Your phone likely sports between 8 and 20 MP, which is quite good. However, avoid going for the higher range because they tend to take photos of high size, which might cause the scanning app to hang when trying to save the final PDF. To get better results, set the photo size to 4:3 proportions. You can also downscale it further to 3 MP for even smaller-sized resulting PDFs.

5. Best Practices for Organizing and Storing Scanned Documents

The first time you ever use a scanning app on your Android smartphone, it can be the least intuitive and you will perform the slowest. After receiving some exposure to all the many options out there, and maybe some useful feedback about which particular ones work well, future document scanning sessions can be done more quickly, in less time, and involving less re-work when the result turns out poorly. Only by practicing scanning a variety of different types of documents in a variety of different situations will you become proficient, by identifying and capitalizing on your personal best practices. Additionally, by practicing, you can become more comfortable and willing to go paperless, so that you can eliminate the amount of "filing" of physical papers in your life. The effort it takes to plan and scan documents is clearly worth the time and effort when you successfully store copies of paperwork securely and rid your space of the clutter that real-world paperwork causes.

While the method is relatively simple, scanning documents with an Android smartphone involves several conceptual steps. Each step has many nuances to consider and many different implementations to use. First, prepare the document, such as by putting it on a flat surface. Then, prepare the scanner, such as by opening the appropriate app on your phone. After that, position the smartphone's camera over the document. Finally, take the photo and save it in the app you're using. Throughout the process, different options can be enabled or disabled, and different app designs lead them to be found in different places in the screen interface, and at different times during the process. Therefore, this guide goes into fine detail, explaining in many steps in a presumed order how to scan documents with your smartphone. After all the possible nuances are explained, practice using the steps to scan the amount of paper you'd expect for a real-life scanning project.