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iOS 11 introduced the ability to scan high-quality documents with your iPhone. With this feature, you can now create professional-looking scans in Notes, rather than taking low-quality photos of important documents or old photos. iOS 12 offers even more options, including using your iPhone or iPad as the source for a scan that you want to add to a Keynote or Pages document. This article explains how to scan documents and photos using your iPhone.
What You’ll Need to Scan with Your iPhone
You’ll need a device with iOS 11 or later (iPhone 5 and 5c cannot scan in Notes since they don’t run iOS 11). If you try to view a scan on an older iPhone, you will see a message stating that you need to update to iOS 11 to view the attachment.
Things You Might Want to Scan with Your iPhone:
- Receipts
- Business cards
- Photos
- Important documents
- Applications
How to Scan Documents and Photos with Your iPhone
- Open the Notes app on your iPhone.
- Create a new note or open an existing note.
- Tap the + icon at the bottom of the screen to add content to your note.
- Select “Scan Document” from the options available.
- Before scanning, choose the correct size for your document or photo by tapping the three circles icon next to the flash. Choose from Color, Grayscale, Black and White, or Photo. You can change this setting later if needed.
- Hold your iPhone over the document or photo you want to scan until you see a yellow box around the text or image. You can choose to scan in automatic or manual mode. In automatic mode, Notes takes the scan as soon as it registers the page. In manual mode, you press the white camera button when you’re satisfied with the position of the yellow box.
- If the page you’re scanning has boxes, manual mode is the best choice because Notes focuses on the box instead of the whole page.
- After the scan is made, you have the option to “Drag near corners to adjust.” This option allows you to adjust the edges of your scan if they are not straight.
- Tap “Keep Scan” when you’re satisfied with the cropped image.
- If you don’t see the option to drag corners after making the scan, you can still crop it. Tap the scan you just made (you can find it on the bottom left of your screen), then tap the crop icon.
- To scan multiple documents or photos, line them up and realign the camera when you see the “Ready to Scan Next” message.
- After scanning all the documents and photos you want to scan, tap “Save.” The number of scans you’ve made will be shown inside brackets.
How to Edit a Scan Made on Your iPhone
- To crop the scan, select the scan from the note and choose “Crop” from the options available at the bottom of the
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