How to Scan Documents Using the Notes App for IOS 11
iOS: iOS 11’s new built-in document scanning feature saves time and is a convenient way to collect information. This makes it easy to attach real documents to your digital thinking without having to shift from one application to another. It won’t replace any dedicated document scanning apps , but it’s a great alternative to buying a document scanning app if all you need is a document ready to sign that can be exported wherever you go.
How to start scanning
To start scanning documents, open the Notes app and navigate to a note or create a new one. Click the “+” in the center of the screen and select the Scan Documents option. Align the document you want to scan and wait for the camera to completely select the entire document to be scanned automatically. You can add documents after each scan, or click the save button to complete the procedure.
What can it
After scanning your documents, you can customize them in several ways. You can rotate, crop, and apply filters depending on the type of document (for example, a color filter for saving scanned photos, or a black and white filter for traditional documents). You can also save the scanned document as a PDF for later editing, or save it to iCloud Drive, locally on your iOS device, or to a third-party cloud storage like Google Drive. You can print and share with third-party applications using the Share button.
Notes also let you edit the document. You can click on the Markup option to annotate the document, or sign it by selecting the signature option where you can use your imported signature or write a new one right now. If you’re using iPad Pro, you can use Apple Pencil to sign a document. This will make requirements such as signatures during excursions a little more bearable.
What he can’t do
While it technically scans documents, the new Notes app does not support OCR like other iOS document scanning apps. When you scan a business card, you get a properly cropped photo of that business card. Of course, you can just enter the information right below it, but for iOS 11 it would be much more useful to automatically handle the character recognition process and let me quickly assign it to a new or existing contact.
Apps like Finescanner ( our preferred mobile scanning app ) and Scanbot can recognize characters and work with the resulting text, but in- app purchases are required to unlock OCR features. However, despite the lack of character recognition functionality, Notes is a pretty decent document scanner.
Before ditching a document scanning application in favor of Notes, just know its limitations. Scanning the form that needs your John Hancock? Take action. Trying to extract and transform information? Doesn’t happen – at least not in this version.