The creators of Photoshop just launched a new iOS app called Adobe Scan. It uses your device camera to scan documents, saving them as high quality PDFs for sharing over the internet.
You could use it to archive old paperwork, scan in a hand-signed letter, or keep track of receipts for your tax report. The in-built OCR engine can recognize text and make it editable and – perhaps more importantly – searchable. Imagine how much easier it is to find a specific phrase from a big stack of paperwork when its all scanned and archived into your iPhone or iPad?
The app has a smart camera function that automatically detects the edges of your document and crops accordingly. It can also clean the whole thing up for you so it doesn’t just look like a photo of a sheet of paper. There’s an optional in-app subscription for more PDF features, but the core functions of the app won’t require this.
We’ll need to spend a bit more time with the app to see where it fits into our ranking of the best iPhone scanners – but already, this seems like a decent app and (if you don’t mind registering an Adobe account) it’s completely free, unlike much of the competition.
Download Adobe Scan on the App Store.