The 13 Best Free PDF Scanner Apps for iPhone and iPad

Converting physical documents to PDF format is essential for easy storage, accessibility, and sharing of information. It’s not difficult for iPhone users as they can easily accomplish this task through various scan apps available on their mobile devices.

These apps use the iPhone camera to scan a variety of documents, such as handwritten notes, tables, images, and printed text, and generate editable and shareable PDF files after adjusting their DPI settings to reduce the sizes of scanned documents.

The post here will recommend various free PDF scanner apps available on iPhone and iPad to cater to the needs of students, professionals, and anyone looking to digitize their paper documents.

Let’s check their functions, and pick one to use.

Comparison of the Top Free PDF Scanner Apps

App	Price	Rating	Key Features
Notes (Inbuilt)	Free	4.3/5	Save the scanned documents as PDF
PDF Scanner HD	Totally free	4.9/5	Smart scanner camera and powerful editing features
Adobe Scan	Freemium	4.8/5	Capture text or images with an inbuilt OCR function
SwiftScan	Freemium	4.6/5	Optimize images when scanning
Microsoft Office Lens	Free	4.7/5	Convert images to PDF, Word, PowerPoint, and Excel files

Notes – iOS Devices Inbuilt PDF Scanner

As for the best PDF scanner app on iPhone and iPad, the default Notes must be many users’ first choice.

It is totally free to use. And to use it, you don’t have to install extra third-party applications. It is not complex to scan documents into PDF using Notes. Just scan files with the camera and save them in PDF format. Like other paid apps, Notes also can recognize text in a file with high accuracy.

Suppose you are unwilling to spend time and effort selecting apps; the in-built Notes is the best option.

Notes Highlight Features

• Recognize text in documents
• Save the scanned documents as PDF
• Set passwords to protect the scanned file.

PDF Scanner HD

PDF Scanner HD app from the App Store is an app we newly discovered and it’s worth a top place in this list. To be brief, PDF Scanner HD is a free scanner app for iPhone and iPad, and surprisingly it’s completely free and without subscription or registration.

PDF Scanner HD turns your iPhone and iPad into a powered scanner and PDF editor app. Powered by advanced OCR technology and PDF editing capabilities, PDF Scanner HD allows you to precisely transform paper documents into digital PDFs, and extract and edit the text in PDF, Word, and TXT.

PDF Scanner HD Highlight Features

• Free to use, no in-app purchase, no sign-up, and no watermark
• Automatic capture, cluttered background removal, and deskew
• OCR-powered PDF text and object editing

Adobe Scan

Adobe, a leading PDF management tool and creator of the PDF format, offers Adobe Scan, a top-rated PDF scanner app for Android and iOS.

With high-quality scanning capabilities and unique PDF editing features, Adobe Scan stands out from the rest.

However, it’s important to note that Adobe Scan is not entirely free, and its pro version can be expensive when compared to other paid PDF scanner apps for iOS.

Adobe Scan Highlight Features:

• View, edit, and enhance documents.
• Capture text or images with an inbuilt OCR function.

SwiftScan

If you’re looking for a top-rated PDF scanner app for your iPhone or iPad, SwiftScan is definitely worth considering. It stands out from other scanning apps due to its unique features, such as file renaming, faxing, and organizing.

What’s more, SwiftScan automatically adjusts image parameters like brightness and sharpness to produce high-quality scans. It also offers easy cloud storage for your scanned files.

However, it’s important to note that the free version of SwiftScan includes a watermark on scanned PDF pages. Despite this, SwiftScan is still an excellent choice for anyone seeking a powerful and user-friendly PDF scanner app for iOS devices.

SwiftScan Highlight Features

• File naming, faxing, and rearranging.
• Optimize images when scanning.
• Back up in the cloud.

Apowersoft Scanner

Apowersoft Scanner is a comprehensive PDF scanner app that offers more than just standard features like converting images to PDF and cloud backup.

With Apowersoft, you can add comments and annotations to scanned PDF files, e-sign PDFs, and print them directly, saving you time and effort by avoiding the need for large copy and scan machines.

However, it’s important to note that Apowersoft Scanner is not a free app. Nonetheless, it can still make your office work much easier and more efficient.

Apowersoft Scanner Features

• Recognize text with an inbuilt OCR feature.
• Back up files in the cloud.
• Annotate scanned files.

iLovePDF – PDF Editor & Scan

iLovePDF is a versatile PDF processing software that, like Adobe, offers comprehensive document editing tools. It’s known for its convenient and powerful features that make PDF processing a breeze.

In addition to its editing capabilities, iLovePDF also offers a PDF scanner app that allows you to easily transform paper files, images, and more into PDF format. The app is designed with simplicity in mind, without any unnecessary clutter or complicated features.

With iLovePDF, you can also take a picture and save it directly as a PDF page. The app includes default editing tools to modify the scanned PDFs, making it a handy all-in-one solution for your PDF processing needs.

iLovePDF Features

• Take a photo and convert it to PDF.
• Recognize text with an inbuilt OCR feature.

Microsoft Office Lens

Microsoft Office Lens is a free and reliable PDF scanner app developed by Microsoft as part of the Microsoft Suites.

Its user interface is clear and easy to use, making it a great option for new users. In addition to PDF format, it also allows you to scan documents directly into Word, PPT, Excel, and other formats.

However, some users have reported the presence of unnecessary white lines on scanned documents. Despite this flaw, Microsoft Office Lens remains one of the best PDF scanner apps available for iOS devices.

Microsoft Office Lens Features:

• Convert images to PDF, Word, PowerPoint, and Excel files.
• Back up in OneNote, and OneDrive.

Scanner Pro

Scanner Pro is a PDF scanner app compatible with iPhone and iPad devices that offers an excellent scanning experience. While the app is free to download from the App Store, you’ll need to pay for the scanning features.

One of the standout features of Scanner Pro is its ability to scan multiple documents at once and convert them into a single PDF file. Additionally, the app allows you to easily share your scanned files via iCloud, Dropbox, email, and more, making it a convenient option for sharing important documents with others.

Scanner Pro Highlight Features:

• Recognize text with an inbuilt OCR.
• Share scanned files to iCloud, Email, and Dropbox.

Prizmo

Prizmo is a PDF scanner app for iOS that offers the option to scan files and save them as PDF, JPG, or PNG. Its most appealing feature is the ability to convert scanned files into editable ones, which allows for direct text editing. However, sometimes it may recognize the content as the wrong text, which is a common issue when scanning files.

Apart from this, Prizmo also includes a text reader function that makes it easy to scan files. Overall, Prizmo is a great option for those looking to convert scanned files into editable documents, as long as they are aware of its limitations.

Prizmo Highlight Features:

• Edit and export documents.
• Text reader & voice.

Scanner

Scanner is a user-friendly scanning tool that is compatible with iPhones and iPads. With its simple interface and smooth scanning process, it allows users to easily scan documents into PDF, image, and .txt files.

In addition to scanning, the app also has a feature that allows users to convert images and screenshots into a single PDF document. This feature is particularly useful for consolidating multiple images into a single file.

Also, Scanner also provides an option to share scanned documents through cloud storage or email. This makes it easy to send the scanned files to others directly from the app.

Scanner Highlight Features

• Scan and convert images to PDF
• Back up and share scanned files

CamScanner – PDF Scanner App

CamScanner is a robust PDF scanner app that offers advanced features for document scanning and merging, as well as Google Drive backup.

While the free version offers powerful capabilities, it comes with the downside of adding a CamScanner watermark to all scanned files.

To remove the watermark, users need to upgrade to the premium version.

Product Features

• File scanning and merging.
• Back up in the Cloud storage space.
• Recognize text with an OCR feature.

QuickScan

Quick Scan works just like its name.

It can quickly scan your documents and export them as a whole or separate PDF file. As a tiny application, QuickScan provides comprehensive PDF scanning features. You can use its in-built OCR feature to recognize texts and other objects in the file.

In addition to PDF, you can also choose to save the scanned content as a JPEG image file. Sharing to iCloud is also feasible so that you can avoid the loss of critical files by accidental deletion.

QuickScan Features

• Text recognition with OCR
• Export scanned files to PDF, image, .txt
• Back up files in the cloud

Genius Scan

Genius Scan is the last best free PDF scanner app we’d love to recommend to you which has a relatively high score in App Store.

Genius Scan has a powerful image and file scanning feature, which can scan clearly with high accuracy. Its default OCR feature helps you to modify the scanned text without effort. Meanwhile, you can save the scanned files in multiple formats, like PDFs and photos.

Activating the pro version, you can send the scanned files to the cloud, like Google Drive, iCloud Drive, OneDrive, OneNote, FTP, SugarSync, WebDAV, etc.

Genius Scan Highlight Features

• Scan files into multiple file formats.
• Edit PDF text with an OCR feature.
• Share scanned files to the cloud.
• FAQs on Best Free PDF Scanner App.

How to Scan with iPhone Camera?

Well, I would recommend you use Notes to scan with an iPhone camera. You can directly –

FAQs

What’s the best free scanner app for iPhone?

There are various helpful PDF scanner apps for iPhone and iPad users in the industry. The best ones are:

• Notes
• PDF Scanner HD
• Adobe Scan
• SwiftScan
• Microsoft Office Lens
• Scanner Pro
• CamScanner Free
• QuickScan
• Genius Scan

What’s the best free QR scanner for iPhone?

The best free QR scanner apps for iPhone right now are:

• QR Code Reader – QR scan
• QR Code Reader for iPhone/iPad
• QR, Barcode Scanner for iPhone

What’s the best free scanner app for iPhone for barcodes?

The best free scanner app for iPhone and iPad for scanning barcodes overall is QR Code & Barcode Scanner from the Apple app store, it supports different types of barcodes and is very reliable and practical.

What’s the best free scanner app for iPhone without a subscription?

There is an inbuilt PDF scanner application on iPhone, that is, Notes. Meanwhile, the Microsoft Office Lens is also entirely free to use without a subscription.

Wrapping Up

Here, we select the 13 best free PDF scanner apps after careful testing and comparison. All these applications are searchable in the App Store. Quickly scan their main usages and other product features, then pick one to install for long-term use.