Best smartphone apps for your scanning needs
Scanning your documents is always a tedious task. Even if you have PC or Laptop with you and send the scanned documents quite easily, the task of getting them scanned is a tougher and expensive task. Not anymore! Turn your smartphone into a scanner. You just need to have the appropriate app on it. It is as easy as opening the app on the phone and taking a snap. Here we go with the best scanning apps you can install on your phone. This article picks the best scanning apps for your Android or iPhone.
Scanning your documents or notes is a regular task we are forced to undertake. You are in need of a scanned document whenever you are asked to send them to your contacts or on account of your business requirements. We are used to the huge scanners at our office, or shops. You would not need them anymore. Your smartphone can handle those tasks now. It is just a matter of having the right app for the purpose. There are many apps that do the task for you. They take snapshots or recognise the text and convert them to the required file format. Here is an attempt at picking five best mobile document scanning apps. We will go into the finer details of top picks of such scanning apps in this article.#1. Cam Scanner
This is one of the free (or the freemium) apps with in-app purchases. Cam Scanner is indeed the best app when it comes to your scanning needs.
The interface is simple and easy to use. The app makes use of your smartphone camera to scan your documents or images. It scans the picture and then analyses it. You can edit it before saving. The scanned image can be saved as a PDF or JPG file. The Cam Scanner has an inbuilt OCR. The OCR can lets you extract important tidbits like dates, images or other specified details. You can save the scanned documents to cloud storage of the app.
The app also supports enhancing the images in the scanned documents. The Premium feature provides you additional storage and automatic sync to cloud services like DropBox or Google Drive. It also provides you password protection.
The Cam Scanner app is available across multiple platforms like Android, iOS and Windows Phone. The scanned documents you save on one device can easily be viewed on other devices with different platforms - thanks to cloud saving feature of the app.
The scanning results are indeed quite good and clean. It has a good folder structure wherein your saved scans are organised in a specified manner. The saved scans can be searched by using keywords from within the document if you happen to forget the exact file name.#2. Genius Scan
It is a simple scanning app. Like Cam Scanner, it is also a cross platform app. It is capable of scanning images and other documents just by a single tap. It enhances the final scan making it more crystal clear. It converts the scanned documents into a PDF file. 
The scanned documents are saved to your library for later retrieval. The Genius Scan app offers you some basic editing options. It also has auto cropping feature. It also fixes the wrong angles you might have shot the picture with. The app is free to use. However, it does come up with in-app purchase options. The Premium version removes ads and offers auto upload of scanned documents. The Premium version also lets you additional cloud storage to DropBox, Google Drive and Evernote.
The interface of Genius Scan is quite simple and user friendly. There are no unnecessary menu options and thus using the app becomes a breezy affair. The app has a great customer support. It has been receiving regular updates.
Genius Scan can be downloaded on your Android, iPhone and Windows Mobile. Being a multi platform app lets it a best option to use across different devices.#3. Google Drive
One of the best productivity apps, Google Drive, has the basic scanning functionality. If you are on Android and have Google Drive installed on your phone - you will not need any other app at all. The app has scanning abilities. It also has OCR functionality.
To use the scanning feature on Google Drive, just launch the Google Drive app and tap on Add New. On new version of Google Drive you will need to tap the Plus sign at bottom right. Then from the options you see, select Scan. The scanned documents are quite clear. However, the scanning feature is only available on the Android app of Google Drive. It is yet to make an appearance on iOS app, yet - you can use the app to arrange your snapshots and images on your Google Drive and retrieve or convert them to PDF on another device.
The great part with Google Drive is the free nature of the service. Add to it the availability of the service across all platforms. You can easily upload the files to your Drive account and retrieve them on any other device or platform.#4. FileScanner
The FileScanner is an app for iOS only. It is a great document scanning tool for your iPhone or iPad. It is capable of handling multi page documents.
The app is available for free. But, if you want additional features that make the app worth using, you will definitely want to opt for in app purchases. There are a couple of interesting in app purchases available to suit your needs. You can disable ads by paying $2. Or opt for a Premium Account. The varied in app purchases include OCR, password protection for your scanned PDF files. There is also a Pro Premium Account as well.
We would advice you to try the free version first. Check if the feature you want is available as in App purchase. Find out if the same feature is available in another app with a better price, it would be better to go with that app alone.#5. Scannable by Evernote
If you are a regular Evernote user, this could be a better option for you. But, sadly enough - the Scannable app is available only for iOS platform.
Scannable is capable of scanning your visiting cards, receipts and other documents. It can handle multi page documents quite easily. Your scanned documents are saved to your Evernote account. The scanned images are quite clear. The best part with Scannable is its free nature. It does not have any premium version - but if you want to use it, you will need to have Evernote for a better experience (however, it works without Evernote).
The app has some unique and intuitive features that leave behind other scanning apps. It can remove the backgrounds when you scan a document. Like when you are scanning a small receipt, it will remove the part of the chair at the corner. The text quality is enhanced to make it more readable. When you scan a business card, it picks the contact number and other details and adds them to your contacts. That way, it makes it easier for you to call the contact or visit their social profile. Another interesting feature is the app is accurate with the results. You do not need to line up the document for better shots. The app itself will handle the correct position and time to take a snap.Other alternatives?
Though we have handpicked a few apps and featured them above, there are many other alternatives as well. A couple of good alternatives are Office Lens and Scanner Pro.
Scanner Pro is available for iOS and claimed to have a best in class image quality. The app can scan your documents and upload them to DropBox, Google Drive and Evernote. It can handle multi page documents well.
OfficeLens is one of the best apps that amalgamates well with OneNote and OneDrive. It scans your documents and saves them to your Microsoft account. You can convert your image files to PDF. It also features OCR. The app has the ability to scan your business cards to save contacts to your contacts app on your phone.Over to you...
Do you have anything more to say about the above apps? The apps featured here are based on the popularity that they share. Maybe some of the favourite apps you may have - are left out of the reckoning. If that is the case, come up with your case for your favourite app here below. We will update our list of the choice makes it to the popularity and usability list.
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