Before you shoot

What makes a scan look like a scan

Soft, even light. Daylight from a window or an overhead light works well. Avoid direct sun and the flash, which leave a bright glare spot, and stand so your own shadow doesn't fall across the page.
Contrast with the background. Put light paper on a darker, plain surface: a wooden table, a dark folder, a coloured cloth. White paper on a white desk is the hardest case for any edge detection.
Flat paper. Smooth out folds and hold curling corners down with something outside the frame. For a book, press the page flat near the spine.
Shoot from straight above. Hold the phone parallel to the page, centred over it. Perspective correction fixes a slight tilt, but at a steep angle the far end of the page loses sharpness.
Sharp, not shaky. Wipe the lens, tap the screen on the text to focus, and brace your elbows. Leave a little margin so all four corners are in the picture.

Step by step

Scan to PDF in the browser with Pocket Scan

Open Pocket Scan in your phone's browser. Nothing to install and no account. You can add it to your home screen if you like.
Take the photos. Tap the camera button for one photo per tap, use Live cam to shoot several pages from a live preview, or Import photos you already have.
Check the corners. Edges are found automatically. If needed, drag the four handles onto the paper's corners; a magnifier appears under your finger.
Pick a look. Choose Document for white paper and crisp ink, or Grayscale, B&W or Original. Adjust brightness and contrast, then Apply to all if every page should match.
Export one PDF. Tap Export PDF, choose Letter, A4 or Fit to image and a quality. The estimated file size is shown. Download it, or Share it on phones that support sharing.

Pocket Scan stays on your phone

A free scanner that runs in your phone's browser: automatic edge detection, perspective correction, document filters, page reordering and one PDF at the end. No watermark, no scan count, no account. Photos are processed on the phone and only leave it if you share the PDF yourself.

What it doesn't do: no text recognition (OCR), so the PDF is pictures of pages that can't be searched or copied from. Photos are scaled to about 2,600 pixels on the long side to keep things fast, and on low-contrast backgrounds you'll place the corners by hand.

Open Pocket Scan See all features

Already on your phone

Built-in scanners worth knowing

iPhone and iPad: the Notes app scans documents (in a note, tap the attachment button, then Scan Documents), and so does the Files app (More, then Scan Documents).
Android: the Google Drive app has a scan button (the camera icon). You can save the scan as a PDF or JPG into a folder in your Drive.

If you already use those apps, they're a good choice. Pocket Scan is for when you'd rather keep the scan off any cloud account, or when you're on a borrowed or work phone and don't want to sign in.

After the scan

Practical tips

Pick the quality for where the file is going: smaller for an email attachment or an online form with an upload limit, higher if it will be printed.
Check thin pen strokes after a black-and-white filter: light signatures can fade. Grayscale keeps them.
Scan every page of a document in one session so they come out as a single PDF, in order.
Keep the paper original until you've opened the PDF and checked that every page is readable.
Used Microsoft Lens? Read what changed and your options.

Sources

iPhone, iPad, Android and Google Drive are trademarks of their owners. Harborlight and Pocket Scan are independent and not affiliated with them.