Scan a document with Files or Notes
These steps follow Apple's help page, written for iOS 26. Files is the one to pick when you want the scan as a file in a folder you choose.
- 1Open Files and tap the More button (the three dots), then tap Scan Documents.
- 2Hold the page in front of the camera. In Auto mode the scan happens by itself. Otherwise tap the shutter button or press a volume button. On iOS 26 you can also choose flash or an image filter.
- 3Drag the corners to fit the page, then tap Keep Scan. Scan more pages if you have them.
- 4Tap Done, choose a location, then tap Save.
To scan into a note instead, open Notes, tap the attachment button (the paperclip), then Scan Documents, and follow the same camera steps. The scan is added to the note when you tap Done.
Scan a document with Google Drive
- 1Open the Google Drive app and tap the Camera button at the bottom right.
- 2Point the camera at the page. A blue line outlines the area that will be cropped. Take the photo, or switch between Manual and Auto capture.
- 3Adjust the scan if you want to. Crop and Rotate, Filter and Clean are there, and Add scans another page.
- 4Tap Done, name the file, and choose .pdf. You can pick a Drive folder under Location. Then tap Save.
On a Pixel, the Camera app can do it as well. Point it at the document, wait for the "Scan document" prompt, tap it, then tap Done and choose Save, Download or Share.
Scan with a flatbed or feeder scanner
On a Mac, the scanner is set up in System Settings. Apple's help page lists these steps.
- 1Put the pages on the flatbed or in the feeder. Open System Settings, click Printers and Scanners, select your scanner, and click Open Scanner.
- 2Choose where the file goes with the Scan To menu, and use Document Feeder if you loaded one.
- 3Click Show Details and set Format to PDF. With PDF you can also combine several scanned items into a single file.
- 4Click Scan. Preview works too: choose File, Import from Scanner, then your scanner.
On Windows 10 and 11, the Scan app does the job, and Microsoft lists JPEG, PNG, TIFF and Bitmap as its file types. PDF is not one of them. So scan each page as a JPEG, then put the pages together in Scan to PDF, or use the PDF option in your scanner maker's own software if it has one.
- 1Turn the scanner on, then search for Scan in the Start menu and open the Scan app. If it is missing, install it from the Microsoft Store.
- 2Put the page face down on the flatbed (or load the feeder), choose your scanner, set Source, and pick a File type.
- 3Select Show more to choose a save location, then select Scan. Without one, scans go to the Scans folder inside Pictures.
A photo, a size limit, or a signature to add
I made Scan to PDF for the cases the built-in routes leave open. It runs in your browser, so the photos stay on your device. You can take a photo with your phone's camera or choose photos you already have, and each one becomes a page.
Drag four corners onto the page to straighten it, then choose Original, Grayscale or Document, which evens out the lighting and gives a clean black on white.
Set a size limit of 2 MB, 1 MB or 500 KB for the whole PDF. If you already have the PDF, Compress can bring it down to a target size.
When the PDF is ready, send it on to Sign to add your name and answers, or to Merge or Compress, without saving it in between.
Pages can be Fit (the size of the scan), A4 or Letter, and there is no account to make and no watermark.