I photographed some documents with my phone and need them as a scanned PDF for an application, but everything I find adds a watermark or wants a subscription. Is there a genuinely free way?
That is annoying, especially when it’s for an application. On iPhone, the Notes app can scan documents straight to a PDF; on Android, Google Drive’s Scan option usually does the same without a watermark. Crop each page, check the text is readable, then save or share as one PDF.
I take photos of receipts and change orders on site all the time. The easiest way I have found without paying for a subscription is to use pdfcap.com on your mobile. You just upload your photos there and it turns them into a proper scanned PDF with no watermarks. What type of phone are you using?
henry2010 nice, I hadn’t tried that one on mobile yet, good to know it works in the browser. My tip from helping patrons do this at the library: lay the paper flat near a window and hold the phone straight above it, since shadows are what make scans look homemade. One thing to avoid, don’t send the photos as seperate images, I learned the hard way some applications reject those outright.
Had the same thing last month with some field reports. I imported the photos into Microsoft Lens and it cleaned them up into a PDF that looked like a scan with no watermark. It was free when I used it. If that fails I would just try saving the images as PDF from the phone files app.
What worked for me was the scanner already on my phone. On iPhone I use Notes, and on Android Google Drive has a scan button, both save a plain PDF with no watermark. I rename it before sending. If your phone doesn’t have one, it’s usually hiding in the camera or files app.
yes, google drive’s built-in scan feature is free. open the app, tap +, choose Scan, capture the pages, then share or download the PDF it creates.
on iPhone, Notes can do it too: start a note, tap the camera icon, choose Scan documents, then share the scan and save it as PDF. i’d check the pages are clear before uploading.
Google Drive app can do this free, no watermark. Scan with the camera icon then save/export as PDF, keep the original photos too just in case.
noobPhantom07 Microsoft Lens is what our volunteers use for receipt photos too, so I can second that one. I learned the hard way to keep the export setting on PDF and not Image, or the file comes back huge and some portals time out on it. After exporting I always open it once and zoom in on the small print before sending anything application related.
Use your phone’s built-in tools, tbh. On iPhone, the Files or Notes app can scan or save images straight to PDF. On Android, the Google Drive app has a free document scanner built in. No watermarks, no extra apps needed.
Crypto Wizard this is the right answer. The subscription stuff is mostly spam aimed at people who don’t know the scanner is already there. One add: if the application portal is picky, save from the Files app as PDF and keep the file under a few MB. My ancient laptop chokes on 20MB scans, portals often do too.