In this article
A document snapped quickly on the kitchen table usually arrives skewed, with a hand shadow and wood grain around the page. The result: “please resend.” With a little care, your phone can match an office scanner.
Before shooting: set the scene
- Lighting: indirect daylight near a window is best. Avoid the flash — it creates a glare spot.
- Background: place white paper on a dark surface so the edges are easy to detect.
- Shadows: stand so neither you nor the phone casts a shadow on the page.
- Flatness: smooth out folds, and weigh down the corners if needed.
While shooting
- Hold the phone exactly parallel to the page, directly above it, not at an angle.
- Let the page fill most of the frame with a small margin.
- Tap to focus on the text and make sure the shot isn’t blurry.
Converting to PDF
- Open the Scan to PDF tool and capture pages or pick them from your gallery.
- Adjust the corners to crop around the page and correct the perspective.
- Choose “document” or black-and-white mode to sharpen text and reduce size.
- Arrange the pages and save them as a single PDF.
Already have photos? Combine them into one file with JPG to PDF.
After scanning
| You need to… | Tool |
|---|---|
| Search or copy the text | OCR |
| Shrink it for sending | Compress PDF |
| Fix an upside-down page | Rotate PDF |
| Trim extra margins | Crop PDF |
Mistakes that get documents rejected
- Cropping off an edge that contains a number or stamp.
- Sending each page as a separate image instead of one file.
- Low resolution where small numbers can’t be read.
- Only one side of an ID card when both are required.
Bottom line
Good light, a phone parallel to the page and a tool that crops and fixes perspective are all you need for a professional scan. Combine pages into one file, compress if necessary, and send it with confidence.
