Document Scanner — Photo to Clean PDF

Open this page in your phone's browser, tap "Use camera", and photograph the page. The tool finds the edges, straightens the perspective and cleans the image, then exports a PDF. There is nothing to install, no account, and no watermark. If you have already taken the photos, choose "Choose photos" and load them instead.

No. Edge detection, perspective correction, thresholding and PDF creation all happen in your browser using your device's own processor. No image data is transmitted anywhere, which is the entire reason this tool is safe to use for identity documents, bank statements and contracts. Close the tab and nothing remains.

Yes, and you should — automatic detection is a convenience, not the final word. Each corner is a draggable handle sitting over your photo; move any of them onto the real corner of the page. There is also a "Whole photo" button if the document already fills the frame, and "Auto-detect" to try again after moving the camera.

It looks for four long straight edges, so it struggles when the page sits on a background of a similar colour, when a corner is outside the frame or covered by a finger, or when strong printed lines near the edge compete with the edge itself. Lined and grid paper is the hardest case. When it is unsure it deliberately gives you draggable corners at the frame edges rather than guessing wrongly.

Use the "Scan" clean-up mode, which is the default. It judges every pixel against its immediate surroundings rather than against one threshold for the whole page, so a gradient across the paper — including the shadow of your own hand or phone — stops affecting the result. If a faint shadow survives, nudge the contrast slider up a little.

Yes. After each page is straightened, press "+ Add page" and capture the next one. The thumbnails along the bottom let you reorder pages, rotate any that came out sideways, or delete a bad one. "Download PDF" then exports all of them as a single document in the order shown.

Something that contrasts with the paper — a wooden desk or a dark surface works well for white pages. Get all four corners inside the frame, hold the phone roughly square to the page rather than at a steep angle, and avoid casting your own shadow across it. The correction handles moderate angles comfortably; it cannot invent the part of a page that was outside the photo.

Use Scan for anything that is mainly text — it gives the smallest file and the crispest letters. Use Greyscale when there are photographs, stamps or a pencil signature you want to preserve the shading of. Use Boost for anything where colour matters, such as a certificate or an ID card. Original just straightens the photo and leaves the tones alone.

The scanning itself does, because it runs entirely on your device. PDF export loads a small library from a CDN the first time, so that step needs a connection on first use. PNG export of a single page works offline.

Document Scanner — Photo to Clean PDF is 100% free — no signup, no watermarks and no usage limits. It’s one of 200+ free tools we build and give away.

No — everything happens locally in your browser, on your device. Your PDFs and images never leave your computer, so even sensitive documents stay completely private.