How to scan documents to PDF with your phone camera
Updated
Contents
To scan paper to a PDF with your phone, open Scan to PDF in your phone's browser and press Take photo. Your phone's camera opens; photograph the first page, then press the button again for each page after it. Choose a clean-up, press Create PDF, and download one PDF with a page for every photo.
There is no app to install. The button asks the browser for a photo the same way a page asks for any file, and your phone's own camera takes it. On a computer the same button opens the file picker, so you can also use photos you took earlier. Everything after that happens in your browser tab, so your photos stay on your device.
The clean-up is what makes a photo look like a scan: Document turns a dim, grey photo of paper into white paper with dark text, and Black & white reduces it to pure black and white for the smallest file.
Step by step
- 1Open the Scan to PDF tool on your phone and press Take photo. Lay the page flat in good light and fill the frame with it before you take the picture.
- 2Press Take photo of the next page for each page after the first. To use photos you already have, drop JPG or PNG files where it says Drop photos here, or click browse.
- 3Check the Pages list. Each photo is a page with a preview; use its buttons to rotate it a quarter turn, move it up or down, or remove it.
- 4Under Clean-up choose Original, Document, or Black & white, and under Page size choose A4, US Letter, or Fit to photo. The previews change to match.
- 5Press Create PDF, then Download PDF. The file is named scan- followed by today's date.
Taking photos that scan well
The photo is used exactly as you framed it. The tool does not find the edges of the page, crop away the table around it or straighten a page shot at an angle, so the framing is yours to get right: lay the page on a flat surface, hold the phone straight above it, and let the page fill the frame. Daylight from a window works well; stand so your own shadow does not fall across the paper.
Phones record which way up each photo was taken, and the tool uses that to turn every page upright. Some apps drop that note when they save or share a picture, so if a preview still shows a page on its side, press its rotate button until it reads the right way up.
Original, Document or Black & white
Original keeps the photo's colours, which suits a page with a coloured stamp, a photo or highlighter you need to see. Document is the starting choice: it makes the page grayscale and stretches the contrast, so off-white paper becomes white and faint print becomes dark, while keeping the grey tones of a pencil note or a signature.
Black & white turns every pixel pure black or pure white and gives the smallest file, which makes it the best choice for typed text. Each pixel is compared with the brightness of the area around it rather than with one fixed level, so a shadow across one corner of the paper still reads as paper instead of turning black.
Page size and sharpness
On A4 and US Letter each photo is scaled to fit the page, centred, with its proportions kept and no margin added, and the page turns landscape for a wide photo. Fit to photo gives each page the photo's own shape instead.
Each photo is scaled so its long side is at most 2,400 pixels before it is saved. That is sharp enough to read and print a full page, and it keeps a many-page scan small enough to send by email. Photos up to 25 MB each are accepted.
When another tool is the better fit
The pages of the PDF are pictures, so their text cannot be searched or copied. To add a searchable text layer, run the finished PDF through OCR PDF; unlike this tool, it runs on pdf.xyz's secure server.
If you are turning ordinary photos into a PDF rather than scanning paper, such as holiday pictures or screenshots, JPG to PDF keeps them as they are and lets you choose a margin around each one, where this tool fills the page and cleans up the light.
Common questions
Do I need to install a scanner app?
No. The tool runs in your phone's web browser. Take photo opens the phone's own camera, and the PDF is made in the browser tab, so there is nothing to install and no account to make.
Are my photos sent to a server?
No. The photos are read, cleaned up and saved into the PDF inside your browser tab, and the download is made on your device. The page itself loads from pdf.xyz, but the pictures you take or pick are not sent to us.
Does it straighten the page or crop the edges automatically?
No. There is no automatic edge detection, cropping or perspective correction: each photo is used as framed. Fill the frame with the page and hold the phone flat above it. To trim a margin afterwards, open the PDF in Crop PDF.
Can I search or copy the text in the scanned PDF?
Not on its own, because each page is a picture. OCR PDF adds a searchable, selectable text layer; it runs on pdf.xyz's secure server rather than in your browser.
Which photos can I add?
JPG and PNG photos, up to 25 MB each. Another kind of image is turned away with a note to choose JPG or PNG photos.