Document scanner: scan to PDF with your phone Photograph paper pages with your phone or webcam, or pick photos you already took: the edges are found and straightened, shadows cleaned off, and the pages saved as one PDF - no watermark, no account, nothing uploaded
All PDF tools
A phone scanner app, without the app Scanner apps are free until you need them: CamScanner stamps its watermark on every page unless you pay, and Adobe Scan wants an account before it gives you a file. This page does the same job in the browser on your phone or computer. Point the camera at a page, or choose photos you already took, and it finds the paper's edges, straightens the page as if it had gone through a flatbed scanner, takes out shadows and the grey cast of indoor light, and saves the pages as one PDF. There is no watermark, no page limit and no sign-up. It is free to use, with no account and no upload limit, and it runs entirely in your browser: nothing is uploaded, and while the page stays open, a feature you have already used keeps working offline.
The camera is only switched on when you press Scan with camera, only on this page, and the browser asks you first. It goes off again when you press Done, switch to another app or tab, or leave the page. The photos and the finished PDF never leave your device: the edge finding, straightening and clean-up all run in this page.
What you can do Scan with the phone's rear camera at the highest resolution it offers, page after page, with the page's outline shown live Or choose photos you already took, several at once, including iPhone HEIC photos; sideways photos are turned upright from their Exif orientation Find each page's edges automatically, then fine-tune any corner by dragging it, with a magnifier under your finger on a touch screen Straighten each page into a flat rectangle, keeping its proportions and, at High, up to about 300 dpi on A4 or Letter, as much as the photo holds Clean up each page as a document (white paper, shadows removed, sharper text), keep the original colour, or make it grayscale or pure black and white Turn pages, retake or replace one, delete one, and drag pages into order Save one PDF on A4, US Letter or pages the shape of each scan, at High, Standard or Small quality with the file size estimated first Make the PDF searchable, with an invisible text layer read in 16 languages, so you can search, select and copy the text Or save the pages as JPG pictures, in a ZIP when there are several How to scan a document to PDF Press Scan with camera and allow the camera when the browser asks. On a computer without a camera, press Choose photos instead. Lay the page flat on a darker surface, in good even light, and hold the phone above it so the whole page and a little of the desk show. When the outline sits on the page, press the round button. Do the same for each page, then press Done. Tap each page in the strip to check it. If a corner is off, drag it onto the paper's corner; Find edges looks again and Whole photo uses the entire picture. Choose how each page should look: Document for most paperwork, Original colour for photos and coloured forms, Black and white for the smallest, crispest text. Use on every page copies the choice to all of them. Pick the Page size and Quality, tick Searchable PDF if you want to search the text later, and press Save PDF. Getting a good scan Edges are found best when the paper stands out from what it lies on: a white page on a dark or coloured table is easy; white paper on a white desk may not be found, and then you drag the corners yourself. Shoot from straight above if you can, keep your shadow off the page, and avoid the flash, which leaves a bright spot. Curled pages, such as a book's, are straightened only at their corners, so press them flat.
Quality sets both the resolution and the JPEG compression. High keeps up to about 300 dots per inch on an A4 or Letter page, for printing and archiving; Standard (about 200 dpi) is right for most email and upload forms; Small (about 150 dpi) makes the lightest file. The size shown before you save is an estimate from the previews. A page can never come out sharper than the camera saw it.
Questions
Is this document scanner really free, with no watermark? Yes. There is no watermark, no page or scan limit and no account, and nothing to install. The work is done by your own device, so there is no server cost to pass on.
Are my documents uploaded anywhere? No. The camera picture and the photos are processed inside this page, and the PDF is made on your device and saved straight to it. Only the PDF writer, the HEIC decoder for iPhone photos, and for a searchable PDF the text reader and its language file, are downloaded the first time they are needed.
How do I scan a document to PDF on an iPhone? Open this page in Safari, press Scan with camera and allow the camera. If the camera will not start, press Use the camera app instead, or take the photos with the Camera app and press Choose photos; HEIC photos are fine. Then save the PDF and it goes to Files or your Downloads.
Why was the edge of my page not found? The page has to stand out from the surface around it. White paper on a white or very light desk, a page filling the whole photo, or a page partly in deep shadow can fool it. Drag the four corners onto the page's corners instead, or retake the photo on a darker surface. Can I make the scanned PDF searchable? Yes: tick Searchable PDF and pick the language. Each page is read with the same text recognition as the OCR Toolkit , and the words are laid invisibly over the picture, so the PDF still looks like the scan but you can search, select and copy its text. Black and white usually reads best. How do I make the PDF smaller? Choose Small quality, or Black and white, which compresses best. The estimated size is shown beside the buttons before you save. For a PDF you have already made, Compress PDF can shrink it further.