How to scan documents with your phone and make a clean PDF

Your phone camera is a perfectly good scanner if you use it carefully. Whether you are sending an ID proof, a signed form or a stack of receipts, these steps give you a clean, readable PDF.

Take better photos of paper

1. Use daylight. Sit near a window. Avoid using the flash, which creates a bright glare spot.
2. Flat surface, dark background. Lay the page on a table with a dark surface so the edges are easy to see.
3. Hold the phone parallel. Directly above the page, not at an angle, so text does not look slanted.
4. Avoid shadows. Your hand and phone can cast shadows across the page. Move the light, not the paper.
5. Fill the frame. Get close enough that the page takes up most of the picture, but keep all four corners visible.

Clean up each photo

• Crop away the table and any background.
• Rotate so the text reads upright.
• Raise contrast slightly if the page looks grey. Do not overdo it or thin text will vanish.

Turn the photos into one PDF

1. Make sure the photos are in the order you want the pages to appear.
2. Open the EasyLife File Converter and pick the Images to PDF option.
3. Add all the pictures and arrange them in order.
4. Press Convert & download. You now have a single multi page PDF.

Our images to PDF guide has more detail on page order and sizing.

Keep the file size reasonable

Scans from a modern phone can be 4 MB per page, which adds up quickly. Shrink each photo before combining. Resizing to about 1600 pixels on the long side and compressing to roughly 300 to 500 KB keeps text readable. If an upload portal has a limit, see our guide to fitting size limits.

Check before you send

• Can you read every word when zoomed in?
• Are all pages present, in the right order and facing the right way up?
• Does the file name make sense, for example address-proof.pdf?

Combine images into a PDF →