Saving a digital copy of an important document with an old scanner is time consuming and not always on hand, but with smartphones, there are multiple ways to scan documents from your Android phone.
With the Google Drive app on your phone and the Microsoft Lens app, you can scan documents with your camera and convert them to PDFs in minutes. How to do this with any Android phone:
1- Scan using the Google Drive app:
- Go to the Google Drive app on your phone and make sure you're signed in with your Google account.
- Click the floating (+) icon in the lower right corner and select Scan to activate the camera. Here you may have to allow the app to use the camera first.
- Place the document you want to scan on a flat surface, hold your phone over it to take a picture of the document, and the Google Drive app will automatically adjust the image.
- The next screen will ask you to confirm that you want to use the image. If the image is good, press the select button and the app will automatically adjust the image, or you can manually adjust the image using the crop and color adjustment buttons.
- To add another page to the document, click on the (Add Page) button that appears in the lower left corner.
- When you have finished adding all the pages, click on the Save option in the bottom right corner.
- On the next screen, you can name the file, select the folder where you want to save it and then click on the Save option to save the file to Google Drive. You can access it from any other device and change it to your liking.
2- Scan the document using the Microsoft Lens app:
- Open the Microsoft Lens app on your phone.
- Select the Documents tab on the bottom bar.
- Point the camera at the document and take a photo and the app will automatically adjust the image, or you can adjust the image manually using the editing options in the bottom bar.
- To add another page to the document, click on the (Add) option next to the Edit option on the bottom bar.
- Once all the pages have been added, click on the Done option in the bottom right corner.
- The next screen allows you to name the file and choose where to save it. You can also choose to save as a PDF, Word file, or PowerPoint file.
- When done, click on the Save option.