Gone are the days of taking documents to the library to scan or spending a bunch of money on a scanner for your home. You can find many applications for Android and iOS that put scanning at your fingertips no matter where you are.
These seven options are some of the best scanner apps for Android and iOS, with other handy functionalities besides scanning. They are smart enough to adjust and correct items for you and let you save them where you need to, making them perfect for both business and personal use.
1. Microsoft Lens
Microsoft Lens is a flexible, portable scanner with a nice set of features. You can scan documents, receipts, business cards, notes, and even whiteboards or blackboards with it. The app then uses OCR (Optical Character Recognition) to recognize handwritten or printed text, allowing you to search, copy, or edit easily.
In addition to the versatile scanning abilities, Microsoft Lens provides a Whiteboard Mode with trimming and glare adjustments. The Document Mode also trims and adjusts colors accordingly. For quickly adding contacts from business cards you scan, the app extracts the details and saves them to your address book.
You have different saving options in Microsoft Lens. First, you can save the images to OneNote or OneDrive and convert them to Word, Excel, PowerPoint, or PDF files. You can also save them directly to your gallery as images or, even better, in PDF format. It also gives you a choice to save the scanned document in more than one format in different places.
Before saving, you have the option to convert your document to a different quality (high, medium, or low) and even access a number of easy editing features and annotation. Microsoft Lens is totally free, with no ads and no in-app purchases, making it the best free scanner app for Android and iOS.
Download: Microsoft Lens for Android | iOS (Free)
2. CamScanner
Another terrific app available across mobile platforms is CamScanner. This app lets you capture your receipts, notes, business cards, and other documents, including whiteboard discussions. Like Microsoft Lens, CamScanner uses OCR to extract the text from your scans. The app also has smart cropping and automatic enhancement features to clean up your text and images for a sharper appearance.
More features include sharing options via email or social media as a PDF, Word, JPEG, or TXT file, advanced editing for annotations, passcode protection, cross-platform syncing, and a keyword search. It also offers a host of built-in tools like a PDF to Word converter, PDF to Excel converter, a QR code scanner, among others.
Some features are locked behind a subscription, but you will do just fine with the free version. These include electronic signatures, higher resolutions, 10GB cloud storage, an advanced PDF editor, and automatic uploads to Google Drive, Evernote, and other cloud services.
Download: CamScanner for Android | iOS (Free, subscription available)
3. Adobe Scan
Adobe Scan is also one of the best scanner apps on the market. You can capture pictures, documents, notes, receipts, business cards, and whiteboards, and then the app automatically sharpens them for clarity. With OCR, you can create a PDF that works with Adobe Acrobat Reader and similar products.
You can use the enhancement features to crop, rotate, and adjust the colors. Plus, your scans are saved to the Adobe Document Cloud, where you can access, share, highlight, add notes, and perform a search. The app saves files in multiple formats, including JPG and PDF.
If you want to do even more with your scans, you can subscribe to a monthly Adobe PDF Pack via an in-app purchase. This allows you to combine files, rearrange documents, export PDF scans to Microsoft Word or PowerPoint files, secure files with passwords, and fill and sign forms. You also get more cloud storage (20GB).
Download: Adobe Scan for Android | iOS (Free, subscription available)
4. Genius Scan
Genius Scan is another great scanning option for Android and iOS users. There’s no need to tap anything to capture; the app does this for you automatically, which enables you to easily scan documents on Android and iOS. Once you scan your document, contract, or note, you can export it as a JPEG or multiple-page PDF file. The app uses a smart page detection feature to correct the perspective and enhance the images for you.
When you need to scan lengthy documents with many pages, you can use the bulk scanning function. Other awesome features include batch importing of photos, sharing via email and other social apps, password protection, document organization, and helpful search functionality.
You can upgrade to a paid version of the app called Genius Scan+ to integrate with cloud services like Dropbox, Google Drive OneDrive, and Box.
Download: Genius Scan for Android | iOS (Free)
Download: Genius Scan+ for Android | iOS ($9.99)
5. SwiftScan
For a document scanner with a built-in QR code and barcode scanner, SwiftScan is a wonderful choice. Like the other applications listed here, you can scan almost anything from documents to notes to whiteboards to business cards. Save scans as either a JPG or PDF and perform a search using the OCR ability.
SwiftScan lets you scan multiple-page documents, edit and annotate items, and enhance images with color and filters. You can connect with a variety of cloud services, including iCloud Drive, Dropbox, Google Drive, and Box, as well as Evernote, Slack, and Todoist.
The premium version includes unlimited scans, electronic signatures, watermark removal, automatic uploads, multi-page upload, OCR, and more.
Download: SwiftScan for Android | iOS (Free, subscription available)
6. Scanner Pro
For iOS users, Scanner Pro is an exceptional, full-featured document scanner. It lets you scan items with your iPhone or iPad and then email, export, save, or upload the images to Dropbox, Google Drive, OneNote, iCloud Drive, and other WebDAV-enabled online storage services.
The app uses advanced image processing for automatic corrections, offers color stamps and signatures, recognizes over 25 languages using OCR, and lets you print or fax documents.
You can use iCloud sync to access items on all your Apple devices, add password protection to PDFs, edit, save, and undo edits if needed, and share your scans easily. It features automatic uploads to connected cloud storage services, and it’s very easy to use.
Scanner Pro offers in-app purchases for you to access additional features like the ability to remove watermarks, perform full-text searches, and enable password protection.
Download: Scanner Pro for iOS (Free, subscription available)
7. Evernote Scannable
If you are a die-hard Evernote fan, then Evernote Scannable might be the perfect app for you. Designed for both iPhone and iPad, you can turn business cards into contacts and scan multiple-page documents with ease.
With its fast scanning ability, just point your camera at the document or whiteboard, and Evernote Scannable captures it quickly. Then the app automatically crops and adjusts the image for easier reading. Share or send your scans as JPG or PDF files, or simply save them to Evernote.
If you use Evernote and want a simple scanner to save your items without worries of upgrades, check out Evernote Scannable. The app is free and has no in-app purchases.
Download: Evernote Scannable for iOS (Free)
Use the Best Scanner Apps for Android and iOS
The seven apps mentioned above are some of the best scanner apps available on mobile devices for scanning documents. Pick whichever one you like the sound of, since most of them are available across both platforms. They have all feature intuitive interfaces, so it won’t take you long before learning how to navigate your app of choice.
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