You don't need a scanner to send a clean copy of a document. A recent phone camera and a few simple habits give results that any office will accept.
Taking good photos
- Flat surface, contrasting background: a white sheet on a dark table makes the edges easy to see.
- Even light: near a window during the day. Turn off the flash, which creates a bright spot.
- Straight above: hold the phone parallel to the paper to avoid a trapezoid shape.
- Fill the frame: the page should occupy most of the picture.
- Use the phone's built-in scanner if it has one (Notes on iPhone, Google Drive or Files on Android) — it crops and straightens automatically.
Turning photos into one PDF
- Transfer the photos to your computer, or stay on your phone — PDFly works in mobile browsers too.
- Open Image to PDF and add all pictures.
- Check the order and fix it with the arrows.
- Choose A4 (auto orientation) so every page has a standard size, which is what printers and administrations expect.
- Convert and download.
Making the file light
Phone photos are big: ten pages can easily reach 30 MB. Two options:
- Before converting, shrink the pictures with Compress image (max width 1600 px, quality 70%).
- After converting, run the PDF through Compress PDF with Medium compression.
Final checks
- Is every page upright? Fix it with Rotate PDF.
- Is small print readable when you zoom in?
- Do you need the text to be searchable? Use OCR to extract it.