A scanner is not needed for most paperwork. A phone camera, decent light and two minutes are enough, as long as you avoid a few common mistakes.
Set up the shot
Use a plain dark table, switch on the room light and turn off the flash. Flash creates a white glare patch that hides text. Hold the phone parallel to the page.
Take every page the same way
Keep the same distance and orientation, with all four corners visible. If the pages look very different in size, the final PDF will look messy.
Combine into one PDF
Add the photos to the JPG to PDF tool, put them in order, choose A4 and medium quality, and save. Check that every line of text is readable before you send it.
Light and background do most of the work
The biggest difference between a messy scan and a clean one is lighting. Daylight from a window gives the most even result. Avoid a single lamp directly above the page, because it creates bright and dark patches. A plain dark table helps the edges of the paper stand out, and a white page on a patterned cloth looks messy.
Keep the phone straight
Hold the phone parallel to the page and keep it centred. If you tilt it, the page looks like a trapezoid and the text near the bottom gets small. Some phones show a grid on the camera screen, which makes it easy to line things up. Leave a small margin around the page so nothing is cut off at the edges.
Colour or black and white?
Use colour for anything with a stamp, a coloured logo or a signature in blue ink, because offices sometimes want to see the original colours. For ordinary printed text, a clean colour photo is usually enough. Heavy filters can make small text look rough, so use them lightly.
Multi-page documents
Name your photos with numbers so that they stay in order, then add them to the JPG to PDF tool and arrange them. Check that every page has the same orientation and a similar size. If the final file is too big to send, shrink the photos first with the Image Compressor and build it again. For a longer pack of documents, you can add finished PDFs with Merge PDF.
Protect your privacy after scanning
A scan of an ID or a bank letter is a sensitive file. After you have sent it, delete the photos from your gallery and from any cloud folder that syncs automatically. Store the final PDF in one place you control. Taking these two minutes protects you if your phone is lost or shared.
Free, no signup, and your files never leave your device.
Open JPG to PDFCommon questions
Do I need a scanner app?
No. A normal camera photo works fine for most forms. Apps only add auto-cropping and clean-up.
Why is my scan dark or yellow?
Usually the light is warm or uneven. Move near a window and avoid shadows from your hand.
Also useful: Image Resizer.
Topics
scan document with phonephone scanner pdfphoto to pdfscan id carddocument photo tips