Flatbed scanners have been the mainstay of epitome digitization for decades now. The problem is that you probably don't have 1 and y'all almost certainly don't have one on yous all the time.

Smartphone cameras today are so good that you can non only take a highly-detailed picture of a document, just probably zoom right downwardly to the ink dots. So why are nosotros using scanners at all any more?

Well, your camera app just doesn't accept the same functions as scanner software. Luckily you lot can scan documents to Google Drive using a neat tool in the app that most people probably don't know almost!

How Is This Different From Photographing Documents?

The big advantage that a document scanner has over a smartphone photo isn't item or quality. It's the fact that the scanner holds the certificate in a precise way and offers perfect, consistent lighting with every scan. Too, it captures the paradigm exactly perpendicular to the newspaper.

When you have a photo with your phone, the page might be distorted, prove a bunch of unwanted objects effectually information technology and be poorly lit. Manually correcting for all these problems would take a lot of time and effort. Not bang-up if you want results that expect close to what a flatbed scanner achieves.

Google has used its software evolution talents to chop-chop and almost automatically compensate for the shortcomings of smartphone camera scanning.

What Yous'll Need

To browse to Google Bulldoze using the Google Bulldoze app, there's a very short listing of things you'll need:

  • A smartphone or tablet (with a camera) running Android or iOS
  • A Google business relationship
  • A apartment surface with decent lighting
  • A folio, book or other document you desire to browse
  • An internet connexion

If y'all've got everything on this list, we're ready to walk y'all through the process of scanning to Google Bulldoze from your phone.

How to Browse to Google Drive with Your Phone

Assuming you've already installed the Google Drive app and have logged in to your Google account, hither'south how to scan a document:

  1. First open the app then select the plus icon used to create a new certificate.
  1. Among the options, you'll see Browse. Select Scan to proceed.
  1. Now you'll come across this scanning interface, which shows yous a live view of what the camera sees.
  1. Position your document and so line it up in the viewfinder. You don't take to fill the window and y'all don't have to be super precise. You lot may accept the choice to choose between unlike cameras if your telephone has multiple units. The principal camera is ordinarily the all-time selection.

Tap the big white shutter button to scan the folio.

  1. Now y'all'll run across this preview of the photograph. If it looks skilful to y'all, cull OK. If not, choose Retry and attempt once more.
  1. Now you have the opportunity to tweak the scanned page. Select the dorsum button to retake the photo. Select the colour palette to alter the image from black and white to colour.
  1. The adjacent button to the correct will rotate the image and the last push button is the crop function. However, this "crop" function actually lets you double-check the selection that Drive has automatically made around the folio. Drag the nodes to correctly trace the page if at that place'south a mistake.
  1. If you just have 1 page to scan, you can now choose the Save button, but if yous want to add together more pages, choose the plus sign and repeat the above steps until you have all the pages of the document scanned.

At present you'll exist asked to save the document as a PDF on your Google Bulldoze business relationship. Requite information technology a name, choose which Google business relationship it should be saved nether and and then option a location for information technology.

Where Are My Documents?

When you first scan a certificate with the Google Drive app, you're creating a browse that's local to your telephone's storage. If you're on a WiFi connexion, that scan will be automatically uploaded to whatever Google Drive binder yous specify. Depending on your app settings, uploads may also happen via mobile data, but by default Drive waits for WiFi earlier uploading whatsoever files from your phone to the cloud.

This also ways that you lot won't be able to share your scans with anyone until you lot've continued to WiFi.

If you admittedly must get those scans safely in the cloud as quickly as possibly, you have to change the setting in Google Drive to allow for mobile data uploads. Be warned that this tin can eat a large clamper of your information cap. You'll probably want to change the setting back later on completing your upload.

To enable mobile file uploads:

  1. Select the "hamburger" icon
  1. Select Settings
  1. Scroll down to Data Usage
  2. Toggle Transfer files but over WiFi to off

When your disquisitional uploads have completed, be sure to turn this setting back on or run the risk of huge mobile data bills at the end of the month.

Tips for Getting the Best Results

While the technology backside Google Drive's scanning office is pretty impressive, in that location are a few things that you can do to assistance brand the results even amend.

  • Offset, make sure there'south enough light! Your camera needs lite to work. Fifty-fifty expensive flagship smartphone cameras aren't going to do a dandy job in low-lite conditions.
  • The Google Drive app does let y'all switch on the flash in a compression. The trouble is that the harsh built-in flash is likely to crusade glare on the paper. So y'all're ameliorate off using a soft diffuse light such as the overhead fluorescents. Just don't position your telephone direct below the light, or you'll cast a shadow on it.
  • Straighten the document out as much as possible. A flat document volition browse well, but 1 that's folded or crumpled makes it hard for the software to go a good scan. It tin even aid to place it within a transparent folder, as long as it's not too shiny.
  • Next, brand sure the document is in focus. This is pretty simple on most phones. Just tap on the document and the phone'southward autofocus should practise the task. Once again, better lite means ameliorate autofocus performance.
  • While information technology's not as user-friendly, if you have a telephone tripod mount or some way to hold the telephone steady over the document scanning expanse, it'll also brand for better results. This is specially useful if you lot have lots of pages to scan.

Finally, if you're trying to scan the pages of a book, there are ii ways to get a skillful browse. One is to alternate the volume laying on its back or front cover. And so that the left or correct page is nice and straight for scanning. Alternatively, why non scan the volume two pages at a time? Just brand sure y'all rotate each prototype correctly to make it like shooting fish in a barrel to read.

A Lean, Hateful, Scanning Machine

That's all you need to know to scan documents to Google Bulldoze with your phone. At least, until you lot run out of space. If you do want to increase the amount of drive space you lot have for your Google services, cheque out our commodity on Google Ane and find which of the packages might exist the correct 1 for you.