Did you know that you can scan a document using your mobile?  This clever tip will show you how to take and combine photos of multiple pages and put them into a single file.

Why you say? Sure, a scanner is great, but if you have a small document you want to scan quickly and with ease using your phone will save you time.
Computer is off? you can’t access it? You can use your phone, having multiple options is a benefit not having to rely on just one device.

With these steps you can have your phone scanning in no time:

To do this on an Apple device you use the Notes app:

How to scan using the iPhone (iOS 11 and above only)

1. Open the Notes app.
2. Create a new Note by tapping the square with a pen icon.
3. Or, if you are wanting to add a scanned document to an existing Note, open that.
4. At the bottom of the Note you will see a + icon. Tap that.
5. The first option is Scan Document, tap on that.
6. Before you scan, to get the best results you could tap on the icon of three circles next to the flash icon to choose the format of your scan. You can choose from Colour (best for magazines), Greyscale (to turn photos into shades of grey), Black & White (possibly the best option for a black and white print out – although greyscale can look better), and Photo (if you are scanning a photo). You can change these setting later if required.
7. Hold the iPhone over the document you wish to scan until you see a yellow box form over the top of the text. You can choose to scan in Auto or Manual mode. In Auto Mode Notes will take the scan as soon as it registers the page, which can speed things up if you are scanning a lot of pages. In Manual mode it’s up to you to press the white camera button when you are happy with the position of the yellow box.
8. Manual is the best option if the page you are scanning has boxes, as Notes will tend to focus on the box rather than the whole page (if this happens you can still rescue your scan afterwards, as the camera will capture the whole page anyway, we’ll explain how to do this below).
9. After the scan is taken you have the option to ‘Drag near corners to adjust’ which essentially means you can drag the corners to adjust the edges of the scan. Even if the page isn’t straight Notes will apply perspective correction and do a pretty good job of un-skewing your scan, but you can help it by editing the box so it follows the lines of the text.
10. Tap Keep Scan once you are happy you have neatly cropped the image.
11. If you don’t see the option to drag corners after taking the scan, you can still crop it. Tap on the scan you have just taken (you can see it in the bottom left of your screen) and then tap on the crop icon.
12. If you have several items to scan, just line up the camera again when you see the message Ready for next scan.
13. Once you have taken all your scans, tap on Save. You will see the number of scans you have taken in brackets.
14. If you later decide to remove one of the scans, tap on it and delete by tapping on the bin icon.
15. In your Note you will see the first page you have scanned, along with part of the second page. You can then swipe across to see any other scans you have made in that series

16. To see a bigger version of each scan just tap on the scan.

To do so on and Android device you use Google Drive to scan a doc

Scan a document

Add a scanning shortcut to your Home screen

To set up a shortcut to scan documents:

1. Open your Android phone or tablet’s widgets.
2. Find the “Drive scan” widget.
3. Touch and hold the widget.
4. Drag it onto your Home screen. You may be asked to select an account.
5. Choose the folder you’ll save documents inside. If you want to create a folder, tap New Folder .
6. Tap Select. You’ll see the folder name in the widget.

Hope this helps some of you when you’re on the road or away from a proper scanner.