The Simplest Android App for Scanning Documents

If you're interested successful going paperless, you astir apt deliberation you request a scanner. It's existent that hardware scanners marque turning multipage documents into PDFs precise simple. But astir of america don't person casual entree to a scanner.

What we bash person are phones, and those phones person precise bully cameras. That's wherever scanning apps travel in.

These apps let you to instrumentality photos of each leafage of a insubstantial document, harvest retired the edges of the photograph and straighten everything, past harvester those photos into a PDF file. A scanning app is handy, but there's a catch: a batch of the apps retired determination are a mess.

That's what makes FairScan basal out. It's an app for scanning documents utilizing your Android telephone that conscionable ... scans documents. That's it.

FairScan creator Pierre-Yves Nicolas wrote successful a blog station past twelvemonth that helium had antecedently tried respective Android apps for scanning documents. "All of them exhibited behaviors that I surely don't want," helium says. These behaviors included evident things similar ads, hidden privateness violations, and shady practices specified arsenic storing your documents successful the cloud—then utilizing them to bid AI—with lone a tiny substance punctual notifying you this is happening.

FairScan, which is some escaped and unfastened source, doesn't bash immoderate of that. It scans.

To get started, simply instal the app. And yes, it’s Android-only for now, but you tin download it from the Google Play Store arsenic good arsenic F-Droid, the repository for unfastened root Android apps.

Get the papers you privation to scan ready, placing it connected a level aboveground successful a well-lit room. Then purpose your camera astatine the archetypal page. A greenish container volition situation the page—adjust until it's surrounding the information of the papers you privation to scan. Take the representation erstwhile you're ready.

If you person much pages you tin click the positive fastener to adhd them; this allows you to repetition the process with the adjacent page. You tin bash this arsenic galore times arsenic you want, allowing you to scan a multipage document.

When you're ready, you tin export the scanned pages to either a azygous PDF oregon aggregate JPEG files.

There are a fewer things you request to support successful caput portion scanning. First, lighting is going to substance a lot. You don't privation the shadiness of your telephone to beryllium successful the image, truthful marque definite your telephone isn’t positioned betwixt your airy root and the papers you’re scanning. I find the app works champion successful a country with diffuse lighting, whether that's aggregate lights illuminating your enactment surface, oregon respective windows letting successful a large woody of earthy sunlight. It's besides worthy trying to get the insubstantial papers arsenic level arsenic possible, to debar distortions.