Welcome to Plugged Basics, a collection of tips, tricks, guides, and advice on how to easily get the most out of your gadgets, apps, and other stuff.
Despite all the promises of us living in a paperless world, hard copies of documents are still a part of our lives.
Whether itâs signing a new job agreement, sending receipts for expenses, or even sorting out a lease on your house, there are always times we need to quickly turn something physical into something digital.
Yes, you can take a normal photo with your phone, but often these are hard to read and just look, well, rubbish. Luckily, weâre here to show you how to get professional-looking scans on your phone.
This works on both Android and iOS, but weâve illustrated it using an iPhone.
Step #1: download CamScanner
Head to the App Store on iOS, or Google Play on Android. Then simply search âCamScannerâ (all one word) and download that app.
Donât worry, itâs free!
Step #2: choose the photo source
You can select a photo from your libraryâŚ
⌠or take a new one:
Step #3: snap away!
In this instance, weâre going to take a new photo. So, click on the appropriate icon and allow the app to access your camera.
Youâll see on the bottom of the screen that CamScanner has a range of different modes, but weâre going to take a single shot. Iâve chosen the contents page from William Strunkâs âElements of Styleâ as an example.
Now just click that button!
Step #4: select the relevant part of the image
I always enjoy this part. CamScanner lets you crop the picture, so only the relevant part of the scan shows.
Do this by moving the clear circles around the image until you get it perfect. Then click the tick in the bottom right corner.
Step #5: put the âMagic Colorâ filter on
Youâll now be on a screen that gives you a variety of filter options. Choose âMagic Colorâ here. This sorts out the contrast and brightness, making the document easy to read. It looks like youâve used a proper scanner.
Anyway, once youâve selected âMagic Color,â click the arrow in the bottom right to continue.
Step #6: add more or send!
Youâll then be taken to a screen that collects your document. From here, you can either add more photos to create a collection or share the scanned document.
If you click the email icon on the bottom, you can quickly send it to yourself as a JPEG or PDF.
Step #7: bask in the glory of your document
Just look at it, so crisp and readable and scanned:
There are a range of other options in free version of CamScanner too. For example, OCR (optical character recognition) will enable you to search through your scans. You can also put watermarks on the images you scan. You can find out more CamScanner, including the premium versions, here.
If this doesnât grab you, others at TNW use Googleâs PhotoScan to do a similar thing. Head over here to learn more about that.
For everyone else, hopefully this guide will make transitioning important documents from paper to digital as painless as possible. Enjoy!
Want more Plugged Basics? Let us know what youâd like to learn about in the comments.
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