How do I scan a document to PDF with my phone?
Open this page on your phone and tap “Open camera”. The first time, your browser asks for permission to use the camera: allow it, and the view opens full screen. Hold the phone flat above the page. A green outline follows the edges of the paper, and in Auto mode the photo is taken as soon as the page stops moving. Prefer to decide yourself? Switch to Manual and press the shutter.
Turn to the next page and keep going. When you have everything, tap Done to see all pages together, already cropped and cleaned up. Pick a look for the whole document, then tap Create PDF. The PDF is saved straight to your phone, ready to attach to an email or a chat.
Tip: Put light paper on a darker surface, such as a wooden table or a dark folder. The contrast helps the edge detection find the page on the first try.
Scan multiple pages into one PDF
Every capture becomes the next page of the same document. That makes this tool handy for things that come in stacks: a signed contract, a school report, a set of receipts for an expense claim, or the front and back of an ID card. You can mix camera shots and photos from your gallery in one document, too.
- Check crop. A page with an amber “Check crop” label was hard to detect. Tap it and drag the corners onto the paper.
- Rotate. If a page came out sideways, open it and tap the rotate button.
- Pick a look per page. Use Enhanced for most documents, B&W for typed text, Gray for pencil, and Original for color photos or stamps.
- Too big for a form? Large scans make heavy files. Run the result through Compress PDF if a portal has a size limit.
- Need to copy the text? A scan is a picture of text. Run OCR PDF on it afterwards to make the words searchable and selectable.
Scanning on a laptop or from existing photos
On a laptop, “Open camera” uses the webcam in the tool panel. Hold the page up to it and press Capture page for each sheet. Webcams are usually not very sharp, so a phone gives clearer results; the panel shows the address to open on your phone.
Already took photos of a document? Choose “import photos of documents” instead. Each photo is analyzed the same way: the page is found, straightened and cleaned. For pictures that should stay exactly as they are, like screenshots or holiday photos, use JPG to PDF, which places images on pages without cropping them.
Is it safe to scan documents online?
Yes, because nothing is actually sent online. The page loads like any website, but the camera image, the edge detection, the cleanup and the PDF creation all happen in your browser on your own device. Your scans are never uploaded to a server or stored anywhere else, so you can safely scan an ID card, a bank statement or a medical letter. You can check it yourself in the browser’s network panel while you scan: no image data leaves the page.