Free is enough, some are good.
Sometimes you need to scan paper documents. Recently, there are various scanning apps for smartphones, but as usual, there are so many that you don't know which one is better, or you think it's free, but you're disappointed that important functions are paid.
Therefore, American media Wirecutter (from NYTimes), which is popular for its thorough comparison of various gadgets and rough recommendations for most people, is doing a serious comparison of scanning apps. The result is… below!
This may come as a shock to some, but unless you're an accountant or archivist, you don't need a hardware scanner these days. The scanning apps that can be used on modern smartphones are so complete.
We spent more than 35 hours researching 20 scanning apps, and after testing 7 of them, we decided that Adobe Scan is the best because it scans efficiently without unnecessary frills. It's simple to use, takes beautiful scans quickly, and includes highly accurate text recognition. Plus, it's completely free for both Android and iOS.
Recommended scanning apps
Highly recommended: Adobe Scan (Android, iOS)
Adobe Scan is great for quick captures of the documents that come your way from time to time. You can simply scan tax documents, cashback applications for purchases, business cards, and more.
Adobe Scan is great for quick captures of the documents that come your way from time to time. Tax-related documents, cashback application forms when you buy something, business cards, etc. It's not as complicated or powerful as CamScanner or ScanPro, which I've picked for upgrades in this article, and it only exports PDFs. But being simple means it's super easy to use, and the files it scans are cleaner than other scanning apps. All scan results are automatically saved to Adobe Document Cloud and can be accessed from smartphones, tablets, and computers. Business cards have a dedicated mode that allows you to easily add contacts on your smartphone or other device when scanned.
You may also like: Microsoft Office Lens (Android, iOS)
Office Lens is highly recommended for those who use Microsoft Office, but (most of the time) it's a reliable option for anyone who comes up with well-formatted OCR results.
Adobe Scan is simple and looks good, but if you use Microsoft Office a lot, Microsoft Office Lens is more recommended. The user interface is as clean as Adobe Scan, but you can output not only PDFs, but also Word documents and PowerPoint slides. Scans aren't as clean as Adobe Scan or ScanPro, and sharing options may be lacking. But the text recognition accuracy is high enough to make up for the shortcomings.
Upgrade to: ScanPro (Android, iOS)
ScanPro is more versatile and powerful than Adobe Scan or Office Lens, with more features and sharing options. However, it does come at a price, especially for iOS users.
ScanPro (sometimes called SwiftScan or Scanbot) has more features than Adobe Scan or Office Lens, including folder management, file organization, smart file naming, iCloud syncing, and 10 storage locations. You have the freedom to choose from several types of cloud services. Whether it's a book, a business card, or a photo, ScanPro makes great scans of a wide variety of document types. The OCR supports dozens of languages, and the accuracy is pretty good, if not top-notch. However, the iOS app is a slightly more expensive subscription model, and the non-subscription Android app has fewer features than the iOS version (albeit more than the other recommendations). So I think ScanPro is worth using only for those who absolutely need the plus functions.
Why You Can Trust Wirecutter
I've been writing about image processing gadgets like cameras, printers, and scanners for over a decade, and have been using smartphone scanning apps for about the same amount of time. Wirecutter has been compiling scanner guides since 2013, and has accumulated over 170 hours of research and testing to reveal the best of the best. The knowledge from that experience is used to test the scanning app in this article.
Who Should Read This Article
Scanning apps on smartphones can be used by almost anyone, and can replace physical scanners in most cases. Of course, there are many more tasks that a scanner can help you with, but if you really need one (accountants, lawyers, etc.), you already know this. Should I have a scanner? For those wondering, the answer is probably no in most cases.
Don't you need a scanner? You might think so, but the rapid evolution of smartphone cameras has made modern scanning apps perfect for the occasional task. For example, receipts, business cards, legal documents, some kind of application form, etc. You might use it to quickly scan a receipt at work lunch or capture a few pages of a book at the library.
Still not sure? For those who say
If you need a dedicated scanner, I will explain what type you need in that case.
If you work with official documents, contracts, or legal documents, you probably need a highly accurate text recognition function and an automatic document feed function to handle a large amount of documents. A portable document scanner or an all-in-one printer with a scanner and an automatic document feeder (ADF) would be good.
If you're a photographer, a scrapbooker, or have a lot of photos, a dedicated photo scanner is for you.
Anyone who wants to scan in ultra-precise, high-resolution images for archival purposes needs a flatbed scanner.
If none of the above applies to you, try a scanning app first.
Evaluation Criteria
There are countless mobile scanning apps on the Google Play Store and the Apple App Store, many of which have good reviews and some pretty cool features. But like any other genre of apps, a lot of them are junk.
At Wirecutter, we've considered the following key takeaways for mobile scanning apps to help you narrow down your options.
Ease of Use: If your scanning app isn't easy to use, you'll be demotivated. We looked for something intuitive to use, with a clever layout, and useful features like automatic document recognition and capture.
Reading quality: The quality of the scan is partly affected by the image quality of the smartphone camera, but the app itself also has a significant impact. Different apps have different resolutions and filters, some of which do a good job of handling document creases, shadows, and so on, while others don't.
Text Recognition Accuracy: A good scanning app uses OCR (Optical Character Recognition) technology to understand the characters in the image and import them into the document file as editable text. Some apps export the text as raw text (either a TXT file or a clipboard copy), others as RTF or DOC files with formatting information. In this case, the more options the better.
Sharing Options: A good scanning app has convenient ways to share your scans and OCR results in a variety of ways. Email, Dropbox, Google Drive, Slack, printers, faxes, and more. Even better if it automatically saves your scans to the cloud.
Various Format Support: I usually scan text documents and receipts, but I wish a good scanning app could also support rarer documents like whiteboards, books, newspapers, magazines, or even business cards. .
Security: It's convenient to save the scanned data in the cloud, but be wary if the destination is a minor server operated by the app developer or something that forces you to send it to such a server. I'm here. We also pay close attention to apps that don't publish security or privacy policies. At a minimum, we checked to see if the app states that it will not sell or share user data without consent.
Annotation/Editing Features: Once you have a clean scan, you'll want to write on it. You can check the parts you want to sign, highlight the important parts, write notes, or sign the contract yourself.
Price: I think many people think that it's okay to pay a little for a high-quality app, but apps that are subscription-based or have an initial cost of $5 or more (about 500 yen). is subtle. If it has high image quality, useful functions, and is free, I appreciate it.
In the first version of this article, 6 apps for Android (ABBYY FineScanner, Clear Scanner, Microsoft Office Lens, ScanPro, Smart Doc Scanner) and 7 apps for iOS (ABBYY FineScanner, CamScanner, ClearScanner, Microsoft Office Lens , Prizmo, ScanPro, Scanner Pro). In addition to these, the 2019 update also tried Adobe Scan (Android, iOS) and Genius Scan (Android, iOS).
How to Test
We downloaded the Android app to a Google Pixel XL and the iOS app to an iPhone 8. For apps with a free version, we evaluated only the features that can be used without upgrading to a paid version. We wanted to recommend a free one as much as possible, so this is important.
Next we downloaded the paid version and started scanning. Each app scanned two documents: a US tax form (IRS 1099) and a simple text document with the same text in multiple font sizes from 12 point to 4 point. . The same thing is scanned 3 times to see OCR accuracy and consistency. If cloud-based OCR is available, we checked whether its performance is significantly higher than on-device text recognition. We then rescanned the IRS 1099 above to test each app's batch scan mode to see if there were any hitches in the process and if it was easier to reorder and recapture pages. We then scanned handwritten notes, whiteboards, business cards, books, and photos (both glossy and matte) to see how each app handled different materials.
During this process, we meticulously documented the quality of each app's edge detection, auto-crop, and image filters. After scanning, I experimented with annotation and editing options to see how well each app could tweak the captured document.
Finally, I scrutinized each app's sharing options to see if there were any hitches (e.g. certain file types can't be shared directly, they can't be automatically uploaded, there aren't many people to share with, etc.).
Wirecutter Tip: Adobe Scan (Android, iOS)
If you just want to turn paper documents into pretty PDFs once in a while, and if you can do it for free, Adobe Scan is your best bet. think. Works on both Android and iOS. Adobe Scan's simple design and lack of options may initially pale in comparison to complex, feature-packed apps like ScanPro or CamScanner. But when you actually use it, you can easily do what you want to do because it is simple.
Adobe Scan produced the cleanest scans I've tested, from text documents to photos. It also has the ability to fill in scanned forms (which also requires another free app from Adobe) and the text recognition accuracy is excellent. And your scanned files are automatically saved to Adobe's cloud for free.
Adobe Scan has a very simple layout. As soon as you launch the app, the camera view will be launched and you will be able to capture documents immediately. On the screen, you can select modes such as whiteboard, form, document, and business card. There are also options for automatic capture, flash, and OCR of documents and images already on the device.
Adobe Scan can capture one scan or dozens of scans, and when you stop scanning, it will stop by itself and move to the editing screen. The process is a little different than other apps with multiple page modes (like ScanPro), but essentially the same. In the editing screen, you can apply 4 filters, adjust automatic cropping, rotate images, replace or add pages. The library view is also simple, with scan results displayed in a grid or list, sorted by name or date.
OCR supports 19 languages, fewer than ScanPro or ABBYY FineScanner, but it still covers a large population of the world and includes Japanese. Accuracy was very high, and it was perfectly readable up to 8 point font size, and the result was equivalent to FineScanner, which is considered to be the best in its class for general font sizes. If you really care about OCR, or if you want to scan fine print, then FineScanner or a physical document scanner is more accurate, so I think it's better. But both cost a lot more than Adobe Scan.
Adobe Scan's auto-crop was on point, and when scanning a white document against a dark background, it only needed a few, if very occasional, adjustments. However, if the scan is taken at a strange angle or has a low contrast with the background, you may need to adjust the crop boundaries. Again, the magnified view makes it easier to find the corners of the document.
Unlike other apps, Adobe Scan's Auto Color filter retains accurate color and contrast (even in small text), brightens white areas, and removes the shadows of paper creases and wrinkles. It was the only one I tested that could accurately reproduce a photo of a dog in an office document. With other apps, the colors of the sky and dogs in the photo were missing, but only Adobe Scan reproduced the natural color gradation. Scanning photos was similar, but I had to be careful with glossy photos to avoid glare. I don't recommend scanning apps for importing photos, but it's nice to have in a pinch.
I also really like Adobe's Fill&Sign feature. This is a feature that allows you to scan a form and send it to the Acrobat Reader app, where you can check boxes, fill in fields, and sign with your finger (or an image of your signature). Quick and intuitive, I recently filled out a cashback form for a PC power supply I bought, and when I printed it out, it looked amazingly similar to the original. If you have downloaded the form, you can import it directly, so you don't have to print out and scan each time, and the document will be even cleaner.
All scans in Adobe Scan are saved as PDFs and automatically uploaded to Adobe Document Cloud. You can share this copy through the share menu on Android or iOS, or send a link to download on Adobe Document Cloud. Scans can also be exported as JPEGs, making it easy to paste into text messages or post to Instagram.
Automatically uploading your scans to Adobe's servers may be a concern for some, but we consider Adobe to be one of the safest services available. For those concerned, Adobe discloses its security policy in detail. If you prefer more secure storage or just hate Adobe, other apps (ScanPro, for example) let you choose autosave storage.
Disadvantages that won't stop you from using it
Adobe Scan is simple and straightforward, but simplicity also means it lacks some of the things you'd want in an ideal one. I have. The most obvious thing is that it is made by Adobe, so it is very focused on PDF. You can also export as JPEG, but there is no option to convert OCR text to Word, Powerpoint or text files. Another cloud storage option is Adobe Document Cloud only. Individually, of course, you can send the scan results to storage accessible from the device, but it's easier to send directly from Adobe Scan to Google Drive, Dropbox, Evernote, etc.
And speaking of the cloud, it would be nice to be able to turn off automatic uploads to the cloud. Scans taken with Adobe Scan are automatically uploaded to Adobe's server, so it should be uneasy for those who are concerned about security. For example, when it comes to financial records, legal documents, business contracts, etc., you don't want malicious third parties to be able to access them.
Also, Adobe Scan's file management is limited, and the search function only looks at the names of scanned items (which must be manually edited). More powerful scanning apps (e.g. ScanPro) can create folders to organize scan results, do smart file naming, and index and search OCR text as well as titles.
Also recommended: Microsoft Office Lens (Android, iOS)
While Adobe Scan is almost entirely focused on PDFs, Microsoft Office Lens naturally focuses on working with Microsoft Office. doing. OCR is highly accurate and can be exported as Word, RTF and even searchable PDF. When scanning business cards, it can recognize contact information and export it to OneNote, and even create Powerpoint slides in whiteboard mode. However, the image filters aren't as effective as Adobe Scan's, and there's no form-filling functionality like Adobe's Fill&Sign. So if you don't need Office output, I think Adobe Scan is better.
The layout of Office Lens is straightforward, with almost no unnecessary elements. As soon as you launch it, the camera opens and you can see four scan modes at the bottom of the screen: whiteboard, document, business card, and photo. Office Lens automatically recognizes the document and displays its outline as an orange box, but there is no auto-capture function, so you have to press the shutter button yourself. Take a scan, Office Lens will automatically crop it, and you have the option to annotate with text or the pen tool.
Office Lens automatically runs OCR on files exported in Word and PDF. The scan results produced in DOCS format were excellent, the format was clean, the text was accurate to 6 points, higher than ScanPro, on par with Adobe Scan, and close to ABBYY FileScanner, considered best in class. The only problem with OCR is that you'll need the Word app (although it's free) to open the DOCX output on your phone or tablet. Alternatively, you can open the PDF output in your default PDF reader, in which case Adobe Scan is better. After opening the file in Word, you can share it in any app. Note that you need to be signed in to Word with your Microsoft account to edit and save OCR files.
The scans I took with Office Lens weren't as clean as other scanning apps. The whites weren't very bright, the filter didn't remove the shadows enough, and the auto-crop tended to leave a bit of the background behind. Occasionally, I removed a lot and left a large desk in the background. You can adjust the crop, but unlike other scanning apps, Office Lens doesn't have a magnified view for fine adjustments.
Like Adobe Scan, Office Lens focuses heavily on its own ecosystem, so it lacks extra features. File management is almost nonexistent, there is no option to password protect files, and there is no way to automatically upload scans to other cloud storage.
Upgrade to: ScanPro (Android, iOS)
ScanPro (aka SwiftScan) combines excellent scan quality and organized OCR in a logical, easy-to-use layout. It has more functions than Adobe Scan and Microsoft Office Lens, including file organization and file naming templates, PDF annotation function, automatic upload to various cloud services, PDF encryption, and more.
However, for the iOS version, the full-featured ScanPro+ we recommend here costs 650 yen per month or 3,800 yen per year on a subscription basis, which is much more expensive than Adobe Scan or Office Lens. The Android version is 1,180 yen for a one-time purchase, which is more affordable than the iOS version if you use it for more than a month, but it lacks some of the functions of the iOS version. Either way, I don't see any reason to choose ScanPro over Adobe Scan or Office Lens unless you absolutely want to use this extra feature.
Although most scan apps have similar layouts, ScanPro is our favorite for its elegant simplicity. When you launch it, the camera will launch and capture the document in front of you. You can also set it to display the library at startup or turn off automatic capture. It would be nice to have a multi-page scan mode, a reminder to rotate the camera for landscape documents, or a warning when the camera is angled.
However, there is no dedicated mode for different types of content like Adobe Scan or Office Lens. Also, there is a unique function called Actions that automatically extracts actionable elements such as web URLs and email addresses from OCR results, but this is only a little useful in practice.
The captured document goes to the editing screen, where you can apply various filters, adjust auto-crop, rotate, and name the file. As for filenames, you can also set your own naming template for those who are too lazy to name their scans every time. The library view is easy to understand, with your scans grouped by scan date. From there you can open each scan, view the recognized text, annotate the PDF, and share it. You can also create folders to organize them (this feature is not found in other scanning apps we tried) and there is an option to display folders at the top of the library view (though folders are only available in the iOS version). ).
ScanPro runs automatic OCR on every scan, covering 104 languages on Android and 60 on iOS. It can automatically recognize Cherokee and Medieval French. In our tests, it didn't do as well as hardware document scanners, but it was close to the top among scanning apps. The best OCR in scanning apps is ABBYY FileScanner, followed by Adobe Scan and Microsoft Office Lens, ScanPro falls short of that, but it's good enough for a little OCR.
The auto-crop feature was consistently great, with clean borders and straight text. In the unlikely event that you make a mistake, the cropping tool lets you zoom in on document boundaries and fine-tune them with precision. There are two "Magic" filters (Magic Color and Magic Text) that enhance contrast and remove shadows and creases, leaving a clean, white background and clear, legible text. ScanPro also did better with photos than other apps, with the Color filter getting rid of shadows and other clutter while maintaining natural colors and contrast. I don't recommend using the scan app to copy photos, but I think it's nice to be able to use it when you suddenly need it.
With ScanPro, you can e-mail your scans with one touch (PDF only), and by pressing the share button you can share PDFs or JPEGs from the share menu on Android or iOS. OCR results can be shared as a TXT file or copied to clipboard. With additional settings, scan results can be automatically saved not only to major cloud services such as Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive, OneNote, Evernote, but also to relatively niche locations (FTP servers, WebDAV, etc.). For a fee, you can also send the scan results by fax, which costs 1 coin per page (120 yen). These "coins" can be purchased individually, or in packs of 10 or 100 (860 yen and 4,400 yen, respectively), and the more you buy, the better the deal.
ScanPro, unlike other apps, does not send scanned data to its own server or run OCR in the cloud. So the security risk is relatively low. The iOS version also lets you encrypt PDFs and password protect files.
One caveat is that the ScanPro is good enough for both iOS and Android, but the Android version lacks some features of the iOS version. iOS-only features include PDF encryption, app lock using passwords and fingerprints, and in-app folders. According to Maple Media, which recently acquired ScanPro, they're trying to bring the Android version closer to the iOS version, but they haven't done it yet.
Other Competitors
In 2019, the Android version of the popular scanning app CamScanner was found to contain a Trojan and was removed from Google Play. The Trojan could spread other malware as well, displaying unwanted ads and even stealing money from mobile accounts. We tested CamScanner in 2018 and found it to be very powerful, but we weren't sure about its privacy and security policies in general and ultimately didn't pick it up. And with CamScanner's best features, cloud storage and cloud OCR, the data is sent to CamScanner's servers. CamScanner's operating company is based in Shanghai, and its servers are said to be in "China or other service-appropriate regions," which makes me wonder if it's a good idea to send a bunch of scans. So Wirecutter wouldn't recommend it, even if the Android version were completely free of Trojans.
If you are particular about OCR accuracy in mobile apps, ABBYY's FineScanner (Android, iOS) is worth considering. OCR accuracy is exceptional and consistently more accurate than Adobe Scan, Microsoft Office Lens and ScanPro. However, it is expensive and limited to scanning text documents. Like ScanPro, FineScanner comes in subscription and one-time purchase versions. The functionality is the same, but the subscription version costs 650 yen per month or 2,300 yen per year, and the one-time purchase version costs 7,500 yen.
Genius Scan (Android, iOS) is a very good and feature-packed scanning app, but I had some issues with the OCR feature. The iOS version had a hard time recognizing spaces, and even when I extracted text from a PDF, it was a series of characters without breaks. The Android version didn't have OCR at the time, but it was added recently. In the next update, we plan to test this as well.
Smart Doc Scanner was the budget recommendation in the previous version of this guide. It's completely free (although you'll have to pay to remove the ads), has decent features, accurate auto-cropping, and various export options. However, the OCR function is broken, and when I try to download the OCR library, I get an error "Server not responding". Reviews on the Google Play Store indicate that the developer does not respond to inquiries, so the app may have been abandoned.
I've also tested Clear Scanner on Android, but the user interface isn't as polished as the recommended one, and it lacks automatic document detection, capture, batch scanning mode, and the ability to OCR entire documents at once. This makes it difficult to get quality scans.
On iOS, I also tested Scanner Pro and found its interface and performance on text documents to be good. However, other media scan results were disappointing.
I also checked out Prizmo, but it got a low rating for things like an unsightly interface, inaccurate auto-cropping, few sharing options, and inconsistent filters.
We also considered testing Dropbox Business and Evernote Scannable, but ended up not including them. Both require a subscription to a wider range of services for full scanning functionality, including OCR. But if you already have a subscription and don't need OCR, their scanning app is also worth a look.
Apple Notes on your iOS device can be easily scanned, with an easy-to-use cropping tool and four effective filters. However, it has less functions than the one I recommend this time. OCR functionality has been absent for quite some time, and was out of scope by itself for the purposes of this guide. The OCR function was introduced in iOS 13, but the movement is different from other scanning apps. First, Notes automatically recognizes text from any scanned image, making it easy to search through the iOS search bar. Notes on iOS works with Notes on Mac, and you can also search on your computer. However, OCR text cannot be exported as a text file or Word document, it is simply indexed for searching. It's useful if you just want to find scanned documents, but not if you want to work with raw text.
There are some other apps that I downgraded because they don't have OCR, are missing features, are clones of other apps, have questionable security policies, or are too high above the rest. They are Fast Scanner (Android, iOS), Notebloc (Android, iOS), Tiny Scanner (Android, iOS), TurboScan (Android, iOS). .
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