Do you have some documents which you want to scan, you probably will be searching for a local business center where you can do that, or you’ll think of getting yourself a scanning machine. Enough of the whole stress thing, you can use your Android phone as a scanner.
What of the Optical Character Recognition (OCR)? Can I be able copy or manipulate text from the scanned document? Of course, you can with these apps access such features with your Android phone.
You might be thinking why you should go for these apps instead of just taking a photo of the document with your Android phones camera. The fact is, if you used your camera for this operation, you won’t be offered the OCR feature, as you won’t be able to copy text from your scanned document and you won’t as well have the ability to save the document to PDF file.
Below is a list and description of three apps that will help your android phone serve as a scanning machine.
Google Drive
Google Drive is a file storage and synchronization service created by Google. It allows users to store files in the cloud, share files, and edit documents, spreadsheets, and presentations with collaborators.
With Google Drive, your Android phone possesses the ability to take photos of receipts and documents, save it in a PDF format, and also allows you to use Google server to perform OCR on it. In essence, you can simply take a picture of a receipt or document, then on your Google Drive account, search its contents. Google Drive is always preloaded on many Android phones.
How can I do this? It’s simple, just select Add New > Scan from within Google Drive, now follow the remaining steps it’s palpable.
Evernote
Evernote is a free app for your smartphone and computer that stores everything you could possibly imagine losing track of, like a boarding pass, receipt, article you want to read, to do list, or even a simple typed note. The app works brilliantly, keeping everything in sync between your computer, smartphone, or tablet.
Just like the Google Drive, Evernote also allows you to take photos of receipts or documents and save them in PDF format. All OCR content is also searchable from within your Evernote account.
How can I do this? Click on the + button in the top right corner from within your app, then select Page Camera. When the camera pops up, you can then use it to scan one or more documents on the go.
Scan to PDF
The Scan to PDF is a free lightweight scanner for your Android device. Though it doesn’t allow the OCR feature, but you will be able to quickly convert images taken with the app into a PDF file that is stored on your device. This is pretty cool to go with though.
What do you think? Is using your android device as a scanning machine worth it, or you still prefer the big computer scanner with will take a whole lot of space in your room.
Are there other ways one can use their android device as scanners? Please do let us know using the comment box below.
3 Comments
I have tried this out before and it works great. A handy scanner always with me helps to scan documents whenever necessary.
I’m glad it worked for you, thanks for stopping by.
Yep, a lot of helpful tool today, there are 3d printer, and with this tool allows us to print and scan item on to the phone, that is really great.