Scan a document to PDF
Most scans now start with a phone camera, not a flatbed. These guides cover that path: hold the page flat, get even light, shoot every page, then turn the photos into one PDF. You can scan documents online in this browser tab without installing anything, which is the point of the cluster.
The camera is the whole job
Software cannot recover detail the photo never had. Flatten the page, put it on a plain surface with contrast against the paper, and light it from the side you are not standing on so your own shadow stays off the sheet. Shoot straight down. A tilted shot needs a crop and a rotate later, and the text near the far edge stays soft.
Take every page before you touch a tool. Reshooting one page after you have built the document costs more time than shooting the stack twice.
Turning the photos into a document
Images to PDF takes the photos in order and writes one PDF, with the page size and margin you pick. Scan to PDF is finished at that point for most uses: a readable document you can email or upload.
If the pages came out crooked, Rotate and crop fixes orientation and trims the margins after the fact.
What a phone scan is not
The result is a stack of pictures. You cannot select the text, search it, or copy a line out of it, because there is no text in the file, only pixels. That takes optical character recognition, which pdfpix does not run.
The other cost is size. Camera images are large, and a twenty page scan gets heavy fast. Compress PDF takes it back down to a size you name.
Questions people ask
- Can I scan a PDF online without an app?
- Yes, if you already have the photos. Take them with the normal camera app, then use Images to PDF in this browser tab. There is nothing to install and nothing is uploaded.
- Why is my scanned PDF so big?
- Because every page is a full resolution camera photo. A phone shot is several megabytes on its own. Compress PDF brings the document down to a size you name.
- Can I search the text in a scan?
- Not without OCR. A scan holds pixels, not characters. pdfpix does not run OCR, so a scanned file goes in and comes out unsearchable.
- How do I fix a crooked page?
- Use Rotate and crop. It turns pages by ninety degree steps and cuts the margins. It cannot correct a small tilt, so shoot straight down in the first place.
Do it now
The tool runs in this browser. Your file never leaves the machine, and the result is checked before you download it.
Image to PDFGuides
- Scan documents with your phone Turn a phone photo into a document scan that looks like a scan.
- Scan a passport with your phone Get a passport page into a PDF an office will accept.
- Scan documents on a samsung phone Use the scanner already on a Samsung phone.
- Image to PDF Put any mix of image files into a single PDF.