The scanning process is very basic: nothing is automated, and you can’t adjust the crop or perspective of the result.īut here’s the great part: Everything you scan automatically and instantly appears on your Google Drive, your free 15 GB “hard drive in the sky.”Īnd here’s the really great part: Once you’re looking at your Google Drive list, you can right-click the scanned document, choose Open with -> Google Docs - and read the interpreted, OCR’d text! (On the iPhone, there’s no Scan button try tapping Use Camera, which works almost as well.) In the app, tap the round red + button, then tap Scan. If you use the Google Drive app on your phone, you already have a scanning app - with OCR! But you’ll never find it without some directions, so here we go: Free OCR through Google Drive (iPhone, Android) If you’re willing to pay $4 (ooh! scary!), though, you can upgrade to the new Scanner Pro 7, which gets you the whole enchilada: the ability to upload to Evernote, Box, OneDrive, Google Drive, or Dropbox, and very good OCR. Unfortunately, the free version offers only two export options: send the resulting PDF or JPEG by email, or save it to your camera roll. The app is also easy to figure out, gives you the option of using flash, and the scan quality is great. It’s super cool to watch the app find the page you’re scanning and then auto-frame it: Here’s another free app that stands out for its fully automatic snapping. Honorable mention (iPhone): Scanner Mini, Scanner Pro If it weren’t for that, CamScanner would easily be the best free cross-platform scanning app. The heartbreaker is that the free version stamps “Scanned by CamScanner” at the bottom of every page. (Rival apps, like Scanner Pro, have a one-time cost of just $4.) In addition to the OCR export feature, CamScanner Premium gets you 10 GB of online storage, the option to auto-upload every scan to Box, Google Drive, Dropbox, Evernote, or OneDrive, and more. To export or edit the OCR’d text, you have to upgrade to the Premium version.ĭistressingly, that Premium is a subscription: $5 a month, or $50 a year. In the free version, alas, all that gets you is the ability to search your scans for a certain phrase. CamScanner can analyze the scan and turn it into typed text. There’s a full-blown drawing tool, so that you can sign or annotate a screen. You can invite colleagues to comment on your scans, sync your scans across devices, send people a link to download your scan, add notes to a scan. Otherwise, though, this is an elaborate system, full of features that no other app offers. It doesn’t snap the pages automatically, though - you have to tap the shutter button for each capture. Automated is better.Ĭompare here, for example, the manual, tap-when-you’re-ready apps (like Genius Scan) to the ones that automate the procedure (like Evernote Scannable): And each of those taps is another decision point for you, another pause, another moment of having to think. Some of these apps do a lot, but you have to tap your way through them - and there are lots and lots of taps. Just try figuring out how to add pages to a scan you made yesterday, for example. The more features it has, the more complicated it becomes. Sometimes the differences are minor: For example, you can email scans from any of them, but often only the pro (paid) versions let you save your scans to Dropbox, Google Drive, and so on. Many come in both free and paid versions. There are lots of terrific scanning apps. Instead, I’ll just share with you my findings: Life is short, so I’ll spare you the blow-by-blow of my incredibly boring journey through Genius Scan, Genius Scan+, Google Drive, Scanner Mini, Scanner Pro, iScanner, iScanner Pro, Scannable, DocScan, DocScan Pro, TurboScan, CamScanner, CamScanner Premium, iScanner, ScanBot, ScanBot Pro, JotNot Pro, and Fast Scanner. Supports annotation (draw on or sign a document).Įxports to all the usual places (Dropbox, Box, Google Drive, iCloud Drive, etc.).Īutomatically saves each scan to a chosen location (Dropbox, Google Drive, etc.).Ĭonverts the picture to actual typed text (OCR). Provides brightness/contrast adjustments. Rapid-fire batch mode (snap one page after another without pausing to process each one). Lets you specify the page size for the result (letter, legal, A4, etc.). Ready?Īutomatically finds the borders of the page.Īutomatically straightens, rotates, and de-skews the page. (Correct: I have no life.) In the course of that testing, I came up with a master list of 14 features that I think those apps should have - and I discovered that it’s very hard to find one app that offers all of them. I’ve just spent several days testing no fewer than 18 of these scanning apps.
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