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PDFToolz

Scan to PDF

Turn camera photos into one ordered PDF. Margins are trimmed for you, with document filters and optional OCR.

Photograph your pages, get a clean PDF

Each photo is trimmed to the sheet of paper. Drag the corners to fix the crop, turn pages, pick a filter per page and put them in order before you save.

Or drop or paste photos anywhere on this page. Nothing is uploaded.

Scan to PDF, free and private

Scan to PDF with your phone camera, no scanner or app needed. Photograph each page, or pick photos you already have, and the tool joins them into one PDF in the order you set.

It finds the sheet of paper in each photo and crops away the background. You can drag the four corners to fix the crop, which also straightens a page shot at an angle. Each page can be turned and given its own filter, and you see the cleaned page next to the photo. You can also add searchable English text with OCR. It is free, and your photos are processed in your browser and never uploaded.

How to scan documents to PDF

  1. 1

    Take or select photos

    On a phone, tap Take a photo to open the rear camera, or Choose photos to pick ones you already have. On a computer, pick or drop JPG, PNG or WebP files. The scan studio opens, and the camera and + buttons at the top add the next page.

  2. 2

    Put the pages in order

    Every page is numbered in the page strip. Drag a page to a new place. On a touch screen, drag it by the dotted grip in its corner. With a keyboard, press Alt and an arrow key.

  3. 3

    Fix the crop, rotation and filter

    Before shows the photo with the crop corners, After shows the cleaned page. Drag a corner or an edge to fix the crop, or use Auto crop or Full photo. Turn the page with the rotate buttons and pick the Document, Colour or Grayscale filter for each page. In Document settings, choose A4, Letter or Fit photo, the orientation, Straighten text and Searchable text (OCR).

  4. 4

    Create and download

    Press Create PDF, then Download PDF, or Preview to check it first. The file is named after the first photo, such as IMG_2041.pdf.

Why use PDFToolz for this

Phone camera to PDF

On mobile, the photo button goes straight to the camera, so you can capture a multi-page document in one go without installing anything.

Finds the page, you fine-tune it

Auto crop finds the bright sheet of paper against a darker background and puts a corner on each side. Drag the corners onto the page's real corners and a photo taken at an angle comes out flat and square. Straighten text measures the tilt of the text lines and turns the page level, using the same detection as Deskew Scanned PDF.

Clean white paper

The Document filter compares each pixel with the area around it. Shadows from your hand or phone and uneven light turn into clean white paper, and the text gets darker. Each page keeps its own filter, so a colour form and a typed letter can share one PDF.

Searchable text on request

With OCR on, English text is recognised on your device and added as a hidden layer, so you can search and copy it in any PDF reader. There is no account, watermark or page limit.

Scan to PDF filters and page sizes

Pick the filter for each page by what is on the paper. The page size sets the sheet each photo is placed on.

  • Document, the default, turns the page grey, makes the paper white and darkens the ink. Best for typed letters, contracts and printed forms. Faint pencil, pale stamps and coloured highlights can fade.
  • Colour keeps the photo's colours. Use it for coloured forms, diagrams, stamps and blue-ink signatures.
  • Grayscale removes colour without changing contrast, for a softer look than Document.
  • A4 and Letter place each photo on a sheet of that size, scaled to fit and centred. With Auto orientation a wide page goes on a landscape sheet and a tall one on a portrait sheet; Portrait or Landscape puts every page the same way. Use them for printing and email.
  • Fit photo makes each page the same shape as its cleaned photo, sized as if the photo were printed at 150 DPI and never taller than A4. Good for receipts, business cards and other odd sizes.

Tips for a clean scan

Auto crop looks for a bright sheet on a darker surface. On a light table or a white sheet of paper underneath, it can't tell the page from the background and keeps the whole photo; drag the corners onto the page instead. Placing the four corners on the page's corners also flattens a photo taken at an angle.

  • Lay the page on a darker, plain surface, such as a wooden desk or a dark cloth.
  • Shoot from straight above in even light and fill most of the frame with the page.
  • Straighten fixes small tilts of up to about 5 degrees. Turn it off if a page has text at deliberate angles.
  • iPhone HEIC photos only open in browsers that support HEIC, such as Safari. If one can't be opened, the studio says so and leaves it out. Save it as JPG or use the camera directly.

About the OCR option

Searchable text (OCR) reads English text only and adds it as a hidden layer on each page. The page looks the same, but you can search and copy the text. OCR can misread small print, handwriting and blurry photos, so proofread anything you copy. The OCR engine and English data download the first time you use it. Your pages stay on your device.

For other languages, create the PDF without OCR, then run it through OCR PDF, which lets you pick English, Spanish, French or German.

Frequently asked questions

Last reviewed . See how we build and test our tools, or report an error.

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