Second, you can't search the text, which could make it extremely difficult to find what you need later, much less edit it. You could, but there are two disadvantages.įirst, an image is unlikely to be as clear as a scan, so you run the risk of not having legible text. Perhaps you're thinking that you could skip a scanning app altogether and instead take a photo of any papers that you want to save digitally. The app usually finishes by asking whether you want to add more pages or start a new scan. When it's done, you generally see a preview of your document. A good scanning app adjusts for slight movements. Don't worry if you don't have steady hands. Next, the scanning app guides you through the process, usually telling you to line up the edges of the document with crop marks on the phone screen and hold still.

In an ideal setting, you lay your document flat on a contrasting background and point your phone's camera at it. When you use a mobile scanning app, it's not much different from taking a picture.

Sure enough, the visa took more than two weeks, and in the meantime, I needed the details of my passport for a bunch of other paperwork. Right after I picked up the passport, I thought, 'I should probably have a copy of this before I hand it over.' So I took out my phone and scanned it. They come in handy in other ways, too -for everything from digitizing receipts to collecting recipes.Ī few years ago, I had to pick up a new passport and on the same day drop it off for a visa. The best scanning apps help you capture all kinds of information such as paper tax documents, whiteboard notes, business cards, and proof of vaccination forms.

How to Set Up Two-Factor AuthenticationĪ scanning app with optical character recognition (OCR) is indispensable for getting organized.

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