Scanning documents is undoubtedly the most convenient way to digitize information, and thanks to smartphones we can carry out such tasks without having a dedicated scanner. With your handy phone and the right app you can quickly scan any kind of written information such as as receipts, book pages, sketches, whiteboards and so on.
There are plenty of scanning apps available for Android devices but the quality ones will do the job quickly and bundle useful features like text recognition and upload capabilities for popular cloud services among others. For your convenience, we handpicked our favorite document scanning apps that are either free (or affordable), functional and easy to use.
Google Drive
Without being the most feature-rich scanning app, Google Drive is likely the most easily accessible one. If you own an Android phone or tablet then you already have Google Drive installed.
Just open the app, tap on the red plus sign and select Scan from the options to scan any document. Google Drive even has OCR (optical character recognition) support and automatically saves your scans on both your phone and in your Google Drive account. Furthermore, the scans are saved as PDF files and you can also use the app to create multi page documents.
Microsoft Office Lens
Microsoft Office Lens distinguishes itself by offering a Whiteboard mode that’s optimized for scanning information on whiteboards and blackboards, a Document as well as one for images.
Another great capability of the app is it can scan documents from a variety of different angles and automatically crop it, although you can make such tweaks manually if you want to. The entire process is straightforward and scanned items are automatically backed up to your OneDrive account. Also, Microsoft Office Lens allows you to convert scans to Word, PowerPoint and PDF formats.
Scanbot
Scanbot is one of the best solutions for bulk scanning as it lets you easily scan one document after another with minimal interaction from your part. The app comes with a smart scanning feature that will automatically crop the scanned document and allow you to quickly annotate it before it’s saved.
It can also upload your scanned files to popular cloud storage services such as Google Drive, Box, Dropbox and Evernote among others. This app is truly a gem as it bundles such great features among which you’ll find a built-in QR code scanner, support for multi page PDF documents and color modes you can apply on saved scans.
Moreover, there’s a Pro version that adds some more features, specifically OCR support that can extract the text from your scans, smart file naming and app themes. What’s even more interesting is you can unlock the premium features without paying for them by enabling adds within the app.
Evernote
It’s true Evernote is not an app dedicated for scanning documents, but among its convenient productivity features it does include scanning capabilities and the interface is brilliantly simple. And if you’re already using Evernote for other purposes it would be a shame not to at least give the scanning feature a try.
You’ll get various formatting tools and filters you can apply on scanned images, although if you want to annotate you’ll need to use the Skitch companion app. Ideally, we should have Evernote’s Scannable app on Android, but for now, only iOS users get to enjoy it.
Genius Scan
Genius Scan is a reliable and very popular document scanning app and the free version offers a set of essential features such as scanning and saving documents as JPGs or PDFs as well as sharing them via email. It has auto page frame detection and perspective correction which may not work all the time, but the results are usually more than decent.
Integration with other services such as Dropbox, Evernote and other cloud service apps is only available in the Genius Scan+ premium app priced at $6.99, which in my opinion is a bit expensive for what it offers. However, the free version is great if you’re searching for a fast and easy to use scanning app with a clean Material Design interface and a intuitive cropping function.
Have you tried any of these document scanning apps? Which one is your daily driver and what other great scanner apps can you recommend? Let us know in the comments section below or write to us on Facebook, Twitter and Google+.
