Whether you need to scan and send a document for work. Or whether you want to scan something a friend is showing you to read later. There is always a reason to have a document scanner on your phone.
The best document scanner apps for iPhone and iPad help you to convert text to PDF or Jpeg formats without compromising on quality. In fact the best ones do all the cropping and quality control for you. But if you’d like to have a bit more control there are apps that allow you to do it yourself too.
Here are the 10 best document scanner apps for iPhone and iPad that will make your life easier when it comes to working with and editing PDFs and Jpegs.
iPhone comes with a stock document scanner already uploaded on your phone. This nifty app has everything you need to start scanning documents right from the get go.
It gets rid of photo borders automatically, making the scanned file immediately shareable or printable. You can go the simple route or you can have full control over the scanning process. The choice is yours.
For a stock document scanner this is not a bad tool. It rates as one of the top 10 document scanners available on iPhone. It takes care of the basics for you and gives you the option to do more with your scans if need be. This is a great scanner app if you don’t want to learn all the ins and outs of scanning, but you want to get good results every time.
Cost: Free offers in-app purchases
This scanner app by Madduck is great for a couple of reasons. First off it doesn’t just scan documents, it also scans QR codes, barcodes and business cards. These advanced scanning capabilities along with its easy to use interface makes this one of the best scanning apps for iPhone.
Whether you’re new to scanning or you’ve been doing it for ages Scanner Unlimited: Scan and Sign gives you a simplified scanning experience without compromising quality. It also keeps incompatibility at bay by being able to scan almost every kind of document.
The other great thing about this scanner app is that it scans documents that need signatures and then allows you to add one or multiple signatures to the document. That makes it perfect for people that deal with lots of documents that need to be signed.
Unfortunately this iPhone scanner app only has a three day free trial. After that the in-app purchases start at $1.99.
Cost: Free offers in-app purchases
This scanner app by Madduck is great for a couple of reasons. First off it doesn’t just scan documents, it also scans QR codes, barcodes and business cards. These advanced scanning capabilities along with its easy to use interface makes this one of the best scanning apps for iPhone.
Whether you’re new to scanning or you’ve been doing it for ages Scanner Unlimited: Scan and Sign gives you a simplified scanning experience without compromising quality. It also keeps incompatibility at bay by being able to scan almost every kind of document.
The other great thing about this scanner app is that it scans documents that need signatures and then allows you to add one or multiple signatures to the document. That makes it perfect for people that deal with lots of documents that need to be signed.
Unfortunately this iPhone scanner app only has a three day free trial. After that the in-app purchases start at $1.99.
Cost: Free offers in-app purchases
This document scanner by Technostacks Infotech Private Limited is great if you need to scan things quickly. It’s designed for people on the go. So if you need an app that quickly scans one or multiple documents and converts them into PDF and Jpeg files this is the app for you. It also allows you to scan more than one document, but to save it as a single document.
The functionality of this app is very diverse. It allows you to scan, crop, rotate and even rearrange pages in your scanned documents. Once the document is saved it also allows you to add notes, annotations, signatures or stamps before you share it. The filter section is quite limited, but it does help to enhance the scanned image.
Confidential documents aren’t a problem either. You can secure these PDFs with a PIN if you don’t want everyone to be able to see what you’re scanning or sending. The handy OCR function allows you to scan and use the text in the document. Unfortunately these last two features are locked in the premium plan - along with signature and stamps. Luckily the premium plan isn’t too expensive at $2.49 per month.
Cost: Free offers in-app purchases
This multi-language OCR scanner by iSolid apps is brilliant because it can read the text from PDFs and Jpegs. Whether you import the PDFs or take a photo of them, the OCR Scanner: Quick Scan app will be able to recognize the text in all the major languages like English, German, French, Spanish, Chinese, etc.
With this Live Text function you can save just the text in a .txt file, or the whole document in PDF or Jpeg format. Depending on what your needs are. The saved PDF becomes searchable once it’s saved. That means you can search, copy and paste text inside the PDF. This is a very handy editing tool if you still need to make changes in the saved file.
You can also adjust the quality to give you larger or smaller file sizes. The app gives you an estimate on output file size so you can pick and choose the size that works for you. Finally the app is completely free and runs off donations. It’s also privacy focused and doesn’t share any of your data.
Cost: Free offers in-app purchases
The Adobe Scanner app by Adobe Inc. is great for converting any type of document into a PDF. Whether it’s a receipt, business cards, images, documents or notes this scanner converts them all. The scanner is also state of the art. It can recognize borders and text to crop and sharpen even the worst scan.
Adobe Scanner is also integrated with multiple document services which helps you to keep track of your documents just by clicking on the app.
Overall this is a high performance app that’s free to use. In app purchases are quite hefty though. They start at $9.99. But for the quality scan you get it’s well worth the money.
Cost: Free offers in-app purchases
This scanner app by INTSIG Information Co., Ltd is perfect for scanning high quality images and PDFs. It delivers crystal clear results thanks to its auto enhancing and smart cropping features. It also allows you to scan all kinds of documents from business cards and receipts to invoices and notes.
The annotations tool can help you spice up your documents. While the
e-signature feature allows you to add signatures to anything that needs to be signed. But the most notable feature with CamScanner is that you can add a watermark to your PDF to make sure your documents and other scans stay protected online. And AirPrint allows you to print any document with ease.
This is a free app with in-app purchases starting at a very reasonable $0.99. Purchases are relatively cheap, but they push the added features if you’re only using the free features, which can get quite annoying.
Cost: Free offers in-app purchases
The FP Scanner: PDF and Image to Text scanner app by Ofly Tech Group Ltd is simple and easy to use. It has loads of brilliant features too. And best of all, it allows you to scan without watermarks. Making this one of the top 10 scanner apps for iPhone and iPad.
It’s easy to scan receipts, business cards, photos or even ID cards and turn them into text with this scanner app. The amazing thing is that it can even recognize handwriting! The processor also gets rid of any shadows and distortions for a crisp and clear final image or PDF.
It also automatically detects a wide range of languages including but not limited to Hungarian, Thai, Vietnamese, Dutch, Russian, Norwegian, etc. The app can export PDF or Jpeg images without a problem and you can even use it to sign documents. The very best part is that you can do all of this completely free of charge, but there are ads. A lot of them.
Cost: Free offers in-app purchases
This state of the art document scanner by Oded Run makes life easy by giving you a wide range of features. It makes any document viewable on a professional level. The enhanced scan quality and automatic cropping makes it easy to use to give you amazing images every time.
You can even edit your PDFs after saving with the four nifty color-reproduction available in B/W, Lighten, Color, and Dark. And once they’re edited documents can be exported as PDFs or Jpeg and shared across social media using the app.
This app also allows you to add a digital signature to your scans so that you can sign any document that needs signing. The best part is that this app is completely free of charge so you can use all the features without paying a cent. But boy are there a lot of ads, which can make life very difficult.
Cost: Free offers in-app purchases
FineReader by ABBY is a scanner app for iPhone and iPad that has all the features you might need to scan effortlessly. It even features artificial intelligence to help you scan any text you need and turn it into either PDF or Jpeg. PDFs can also be password protected to help keep prying eyes at bay.
SiriShortcuts makes life a lot easier when you’re using this app. And saved files are shareable across lots of storage clouds including iCloud, Google Drive and even DropBox. That means all your files can be accessed on multiple devices. Perfect for sharing for work.
The app itself is free, but in-app purchases start out at $2.99. That isn’t much for what you get with this app though, but you need to pay if you want to scan more than 5 pages.
Cost: Free offers in-app purchases