How to Scan Documents With Your Phone Camera Into a Clear PDF

A good scan starts before you press the shutter

Phone cameras today are more than good enough to copy a certificate, a bonafide letter or a rent agreement for an online form. What makes a scan look poor is rarely the camera. It is usually dim light, a tilted angle, a busy background or a shadow falling across the page. Fix these at the time of clicking and the PDF will be sharp and small with very little effort later.

Many phones also have a document mode in the camera or in a notes app that crops the page automatically. It is worth using if you have it. The tips below apply either way.

Light and background

Daylight near a window is the best free light source. Place the document on a flat surface that contrasts with white paper, such as a dark table or a coloured bedsheet, so the edges of the page are easy to see and crop.

• Avoid direct sunlight, which creates glare on glossy certificates and laminated cards
• Do not use the flash for flat paper; it leaves a bright hot spot in the middle
• Watch for the shadow of your own hand and phone, especially under a ceiling light
• Switch off the tube light directly overhead if it causes a reflection, and use side light instead

Angle, focus and cropping

Hold the phone directly above the page, parallel to it, not at a slant. A slanted shot makes the page look like a trapezium and the text at the far end becomes small and blurry. Fill most of the frame with the page but leave a thin border so no edge is cut off.

Tap on the text to focus and hold steady for a second after pressing the button. Rest your elbows on the table if your hands shake. Take two shots of each page and keep the sharper one.

Then crop each photo in your phone’s gallery editor so only the paper remains. Cropping away the table and background makes the page look neater and also reduces the file size, because there is less image to store.

Putting the pages in order and making the PDF

Once the photos are cropped, open the JPG to PDF tool on Filyzo. It accepts JPG, PNG and WEBP images, and the conversion happens in your browser, so the photos of your documents stay on your phone.

Some iPhones save photos in HEIC format. If an image will not load, change the camera setting to Most Compatible under Settings, Camera, Formats for future shots, or convert the existing photo to JPG first.

• Tap Select images and choose all the pages of the document.
• Check the order. Use the up and down arrows to move a page so page 1 comes first.
• Keep Fit images on A4 pages ticked if the PDF will be printed or viewed as a normal document. Each photo is placed on an A4 page with a small margin, and wide photos get a landscape page.
• Tap Convert to PDF and download the file.

Fixing sideways or upside-down pages

Phones sometimes save a photo in the wrong orientation, particularly when the phone was held flat over a table. If a page in the PDF appears sideways, open Rotate PDF, choose 90° right, 90° left or 180°, and either keep All pages or pick Selected pages and type only the page numbers that need turning, such as 2 or 3-4. Rotation does not re-render the page, so quality stays exactly as it was.

Making the PDF small enough to upload

A PDF built from full-size phone photos can be a few megabytes even for two or three pages. Portals for admissions, scholarships and KYC often ask for much less, and the limit differs from one portal to another, so check the official upload instructions first.

Open Compress PDF, select your scanned PDF and choose a target such as 100 KB, 200 KB or 500 KB, or type a custom size. If the tool reports it could not reach the target, the document probably has too many pages for that limit. Remove pages that were not asked for, like the blank back of a certificate, and try again.

Always zoom in on the compressed file and read the smallest text, such as registration numbers, dates and the seal. A file that meets the size limit but cannot be read will still be rejected at verification.

Checklist for a clean scan

Run through this list before you upload or email the PDF.

• All four corners of every page are visible
• No shadows, glare or fingers on the page
• Pages are in the correct order and upright
• Text, signatures and stamps are readable when zoomed in
• The file size is within the limit given in the official instructions
• The original photos are saved in case you need a better copy later