How to Scan a Document on iPhone Into a PDF You Can Send

To scan a document on iPhone, open the Notes app or the Files app, choose Scan Documents, and hold the phone over the page until it captures. Add pages and tap Done. In Notes the scan is saved as a PDF inside the note, and you share it out. In Files you choose a location and tap Save.

Both routes use the same capture screen, so the choice is about where the scan should live afterwards. The sections here follow Apple's own instructions and mark the places where Apple's pages are silent and you need to test for yourself.

Which built-in iPhone apps scan a document?

Notes and Files both scan a document with nothing to install. Apple's support article on how to scan documents on your iPhone or iPad gives a procedure for each. Apple's iPhone User Guide also documents a Scan Documents command in the Preview app, on iPhones that have it.

The Camera app on its own is not on that list. It takes a photograph, which is a different thing from a cropped, flattened page saved as a PDF.

The Preview row comes from the User Guide page on how to scan text and documents in Preview on iPhone, which says only that you "can scan text or a document to create a PDF". If there is no Preview app on your home screen or in your App Library, use Notes or Files.

Choosing between Notes and Files

Ask one question: do you want a note or a file?

• You are in a client meeting and typing as you go. Scan into the note you are already writing, so the page and your comments stay together.
• You are capturing a signed engagement letter that needs to go into the client's folder. Scan with Files and save it there in one step.
• Someone else will need the scan today. Either works, but Files skips the step of getting the scan out of the note.

In the meeting, an intake form belongs in the note you are already writing, and a pleading you need to send today belongs in Files. Either way, keep the scan sharp enough to read the smallest line before you share it. If the PDF may be documentary evidence, save the photograph beside it so authentication and the chain of custody can use the original capture.

Scanning a page in the Notes app, tap by tap

In Notes you open a note, tap the Attachment button, tap Scan Documents, hold the phone over the page and let it capture. You tap Done when the last page is in. Apple's user guide page on how to scan text and documents in Notes says the result "is saved as a PDF in the note".

Apple's steps, in order:

1. Open Notes and select a note, or create a new one.
2. Tap the Attachment button, then tap Scan Documents.
3. Place the document in view of the camera.
4. If the device is in Auto mode, the document scans automatically. To capture by hand, tap the Shutter button or press one of the Volume buttons.
5. After a manual capture, drag the corners to fit the page, then tap Keep Scan.
6. Tap Done, or add further scans to the document.

Apple's article adds a second way in: in an open note you can tap the More button and then Scan.

Before you tap Scan Documents

A few choices made before the camera opens save work later.

• Name the note first. Type a first line such as "Okafor lease, signed copy, received 8 Oct". A scan in a note with no words you can search for is hard to find a week on.
• One document per note. If you scan a lease and then a guaranty into the same scan session, they become pages of one PDF. Start a new scan for each document you want as a separate file.
• Clear the table. Put the page on a plain surface that contrasts with the paper, so the edges are easy to find.

If your screen looks different

Apple's article is written for the current system and links to separate instructions for iOS 17 and earlier. It also says that in iOS 26 you can choose options such as flash or an image filter on the capture screen. If a button named in the steps is not where you expect it, check your iOS version under Settings, General, About, and follow the version of Apple's instructions that matches.

The same Attachment menu holds a second command, Scan Text, which types recognized words into the note without keeping a picture of the page. That is a different job. The post on a word scanner that reads print with the camera covers it.

Scanning straight into a folder with the Files app

In Files you tap the More button, tap Scan Documents, capture the pages, tap Done, then choose a location and tap Save. The scan lands in that location as a file, with no note around it. Apple's steps for Files do not name the file type, so check the saved file's extension.

Apple's steps for Files are the same as its steps for Notes from placing the document in view of the camera to tapping Done, and then add one more: "Choose a location, then tap Save." Apple's user guide says a scan made in Notes is saved as a PDF; neither of its Files pages says what kind of file a Files scan is.

The User Guide page on how to send files from the Files app describes a different order. You first open a location or folder, and then tap the button that offers Scan Documents. That page does not say the scan is saved to the folder you opened, so read the location on the save screen either way.

Where the file lands

Files may show more than one storage location, iCloud Drive among them, depending on how the phone is set up. Read which one is selected before you tap Save. Which of those is right for client documents is a question for your firm's policy, not for the phone. Decide before you scan:

• Is this location one the firm controls? A personal iCloud account is not the firm's storage.
• Does it sync? A scan saved to a synced location appears on your other devices signed in to the same account.
• Can a colleague reach it? If not, you will be sending the file anyway.

Naming the scan

Give the file a name you could find by searching: client, document, date. If the save screen gives you no chance to name it, rename the file in Files straight after saving. A folder full of files with the same default name is a problem you can prevent at the moment of each scan.

What do Auto mode, the shutter and the corner handles do on an iPhone scan?

Auto mode captures the page for you, the shutter captures it when you say so, and the corner handles let you fix where the page edges are. Apple documents all three, briefly. Between them they decide whether the PDF shows the whole page and nothing else.

Auto mode

Apple's User Guide describes automatic capture this way: keep the iPhone steady, and it "automatically captures the document when it detects the page boundaries". Detection needs boundaries to detect. White paper on a white countertop gives it little to work with. If Auto will not fire, move the page to a darker surface or switch to manual.

Auto can also fire when you are not ready: while your thumb is still on the corner of the page, or while the page is half out of frame. Look at the thumbnail after each capture. Apple's guide says you can tap the thumbnail and choose an option such as Adjust to make changes.

The shutter and the volume buttons

For a manual capture you tap the Shutter button or, per Apple's support article, press one of the Volume buttons. The volume button is worth knowing about. Pressing a side button lets you hold the phone with both hands, which is steadier than stretching a thumb to the screen.

Use manual capture when:

• the page has a dark border or a colored background that confuses edge detection,
• you are scanning a small item, such as a receipt, on a larger sheet, or
• the document is bound and you need to hold it flat with one hand.

The corner handles

After a manual capture Apple tells you to "drag the corners to adjust the scan to fit the page", then tap Keep Scan. The User Guide words the choice as Retake or Keep.

Put each handle on the true corner of the paper, not the corner of the text. Margins matter in legal papers. A page number, a fax header, a Bates number, a handwritten initial or a filing stamp can sit within a few millimeters of the edge. Crop to the paper and you keep them all.

Flash and filters

Apple mentions flash and image filters as options on the capture screen and does not describe what each filter does. Test them on one page. The post on best scanner app settings explains what filters and perspective correction do to a page as a class, and why you should keep an unfiltered copy of anything with faint ink.

Several pages

Apple's steps end with "add additional scans to the document", so a multi-page document is one session with one Done at the end. Capturing page order, two-sided originals and two documents in one sitting are covered in the post on how to scan 2 documents into 1 PDF.

Getting an iPhone scan out of Notes as a PDF

A scan in Notes is already a PDF attached to the note. To get it out, open the note, tap the PDF's menu button, and choose Share. Apple's page on how to work with PDFs in Notes on iPhone lists the actions as "Copy, share, rename, or delete the PDF".

Share the PDF, not the note it sits in. The note holds your typed comments as well as the scan, and the PDF holds only the scanned pages.

A checklist before you send

1. Rename it. Use the rename action Apple lists, so the recipient does not get a file with a generic name.
2. Page through it. Count the pages against the paper. Look for a cropped margin or a finger in the frame.
3. Check the page order and rotation. Apple's page lists Rotate Left and Rotate Right among the page actions, and says Filters and Crop Page work only on scanned documents.
4. Pick the destination from the share sheet. Mail attaches the PDF to a message. A save-to-folder option, where your share sheet offers one, puts a copy in Files.
5. Open what you sent. Open the attachment in your sent mail or the copy in the folder, and confirm it is the PDF and it has every page.

A worked example

Marisol, a paralegal, visits a client at a care home to collect a signed four-page declaration. She opens Notes, titles a note "Brandt declaration, signed, 8 Oct", and captures the four pages in order by hand, because the notary's stamp on the signature page runs close to the edge and she wants to set the corners herself. On page three she sees her thumb inside the frame and taps Retake. On each page she sets the corner handles on the paper's corners and keeps the scan. Before she leaves the room she pages through the PDF and counts four pages. Then she shares the PDF by email to the firm's intake address and opens the sent message to confirm four pages arrived. The paper goes in the folder to travel back to the office.

Scanning from the phone into a Mac

If you are at a desk with a Mac, you do not have to scan on the phone and then send the file to yourself. Apple's scanning article points to Continuity Camera as the way to scan from an iPhone or iPad to a Mac. The post on converting a PDF to a searchable PDF on a Mac has a section on scanning with an iPhone into a PDF on the Mac.

Does an iPhone scan have text you can search outside the phone?

Apple documents search inside Notes. It says Notes can search "text in scanned documents". Apple's pages do not say whether the PDF you share out of Notes or the file you save from Files carries text that other software can select and search. Treat that as something to test on the file you actually sent.

What Apple states is on its User Guide page on how to search through your notes on iPhone: you can search all your notes for "typed and handwritten text, objects in images, and text in scanned documents", and when searching within a note you can select Include Attachments "to search PDFs and other attachments". That is a statement about finding a scan from inside the Notes app. It is not a statement about the file.

What to test

Send the file to a computer, open it in the PDF reader your office uses, and try two things: drag-select one sentence, and search for a word you can see on the first page and another on the last. If text selects, paste a line with a name and a number into a blank document and compare it with the page.

If nothing selects and search finds nothing, the file is a set of page pictures. The short post on free OCR scanner apps sets out the check in full, and explains what a phone scan's recognized text is worth when it has some.

When you need text you can rely on

A scan with no text, or with text you have not checked, is fine for showing someone a page. It is not enough when you need to search a long agreement, quote from it, or pull a schedule into a spreadsheet. For that, run the PDF through OCR. Schema Law accepts a PDF, PNG or JPEG up to 20 MB, reads the pages into text and tables, and exports them in the formats listed on the homepage, searchable PDF and Word among them. Recognition is strongest on clean print, and nothing marks a passage as uncertain, so check names, dates and amounts against the scan. The guide to how to OCR a photo of a document covers what the capture needs for that step to go well.