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Document Scanner: Photo to Clean PDF

Turn phone photos of papers into a clean, flat scan: edges found and straightened, shadows whitened, saved as an A4 PDF or JPG. Camera or photos, nothing uploaded.

Private · on device. Runs in your browser: your file is not uploaded. No sign-up.

Photos of your pages, one per page. HEIC from iPhone works too.
Like a scanner, in your browser. Photograph each page on a darker surface. The edges of the paper are found for you (drag the corners if needed), the page is straightened, and shadows are whitened away. Nothing is uploaded.

A scanner app without the app

A photo of a document is not a scan: the page is tilted, the corners are not square, the paper is grey with a shadow across it, and the table shows around the edges. A scanner app fixes all of that, and this page does the same in your browser, with nothing to install and nothing uploaded.

  1. Photograph each page on a darker surface, or use the camera button to capture pages one after another.
  2. Check the blue outline on each page; drag a corner if it missed.
  3. Pick a clean-up filter and the paper size (A4, Letter, Legal, A5, ID card or the page's own size).
  4. Drag the pages into order and save one PDF, or a JPG or PNG per page.

Tips for a perfect scan

  • Contrast helps. White paper on a dark table is found every time; white paper on a white desk may need the corners dragged.
  • Even light, no flash glare. Shadows are whitened away by Magic colour, but a bright glare spot hides the text under it.
  • Fill the frame. The more pixels the page has, the sharper the text at 300 dpi.
  • ID cards: choose the ID card size (85.6 × 54 mm) for a card printed at its real size.

After scanning

The PDF holds pictures of your pages. To search or copy its text, run it through OCR PDF. To shrink it for an upload form, use Compress PDF, or set a size limit right here before saving. Already have clean images? Image to PDF combines them without any processing.

Frequently asked questions

How does it find the edges of the page?

On a small copy of the photo it looks for strong straight edges (a Canny edge map and a Hough transform for lines) and, separately, for the largest bright region (the paper against a darker table). Every four-sided shape these suggest is scored by how much of its outline lies on real edges and how big it is; the best one is refined against the edge pixels and its corners are placed. If nothing convincing is found, the whole photo with a small margin is used and you drag the corners yourself.

How do I move a corner precisely?

Drag it: on a phone a magnifier shows what is under your finger. Or tap or Tab to a corner and use the arrow keys (hold Shift for bigger steps). "Reset to auto" goes back to the detected corners and "Full image" uses the whole photo.

Which filter should I use?

Magic colour suits most documents: the paper turns white and shadows disappear, while stamps, signatures in blue ink and highlighter keep their colour. Black & white gives the crispest, smallest text pages (good for forms and printing). Grayscale is in between. Photo only brightens and sharpens, for pages with pictures. Original keeps the colours as photographed.

Can I make a PDF under 1 MB or 500 KB?

Yes. Choose a file size limit under Save as. The scanner lowers the quality and resolution of all pages together, just enough for the whole PDF to fit, and tells you if it could not. Black & white pages fit far more easily into a small limit than colour ones.

Are my documents uploaded?

No. The camera, the edge finding, straightening, cleaning and the PDF are all handled by your browser. Your documents never leave your device, which matters for ID cards, bank papers and certificates.

Why use the camera button instead of my camera app?

The live camera outlines the page as you aim, so you know it will be found before you take the shot, and each capture becomes the next page straight away. "Take a photo" opens your phone's own camera app instead, which may have better focus and flash.