Skip to main content

Digital Trends may earn a commission when you buy through links on our site. Why trust us?

Turn physical documents into editable, searchable text with Adobe Scan

adobe scan launched capture screen ios 1024x683
Adobe
Using a smartphone camera to scan a new document is not anything new, but Adobe’s attempt at a mobile scanner uses artificial intelligence to turn the image into an editable PDF.  Adobe Scan, announced on Wednesday, is a free app for iOS and Android.

Like other scan apps, Adobe Scan snaps a photo of a document to turn it into a digital file. But, thanks to Adobe’s AI programming inside Adobe Sensi, translating a physical document to a digital one is not the end. The program will auto-recognize text, making it possible to refine the document later in Adobe Acrobat or easily copy and paste. Since the text is auto-recognized, documents become searchable too.

Adobe Sensi also powers the app’s ability to auto-recognize the document’s boundaries for an accurate crop. The program will also automatically correct perspective errors and remove shadows. Users can also fine-tune the scan with a set of manual adjustment tools, including cropping, rotating and re-ordering pages for larger documents.

“When you think of it, documents are the lifeblood of society, communicating data and information that spans contracts, textbooks, financial statements and everything in between,” wrote Abhay Parasnis, Adobe executive vice president and chief technology officer. “The challenge is unlocking the intelligence that lives in those documents, and extracting meaning that can be searched, analyzed and incorporated into digital workflows. Adobe Scan represents a critical step toward our broader innovation imperative for Adobe Document Cloud, and there’s much more to come.”

The tradeoff for the smarter scans? The app is cloud-based. The documents are automatically uploaded to the free Adobe Document Cloud in-app for access across multiple devices while exporting options comes with the $10 a month PDF Pack. Subscribers also have access to extras like adding signatures and merging PDFs. Adobe Scan is available from both the App Store and Google Play.

Editors' Recommendations

Hillary K. Grigonis
Hillary never planned on becoming a photographer—and then she was handed a camera at her first writing job and she's been…
Adobe turns pixels into paint with real-feel art app Fresco
adobe fresco launches recreate pascal 01

Digital paint programs are coming of age -- on Tuesday, September 24, Adobe launched Fresco, a painting app that mimics real art techniques rather than the mouse-to-screen drawings that usually end up looking like they belong on a refrigerator rather than an art gallery. Initially previewed as Project Gemini during Adobe Max 2018, Adobe Fresco is designed for the iPad and the pressure-sensitive Apple Pencil.

Adobe Fresco mixes the tools and familiar interfaces of apps like Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator with brushes and tools that behave like the real thing. From mixing colors together with the brush to integrating texture, Fresco uses dynamic brushes crafted to look like traditional tools, assisted by compatibility with Photoshop brushes.

Read more
Adobe Premiere Rush now allows Android users to edit video without the laptop
adobe premiere rush android launch lizzy pierce

Adobe’s new video app Premiere Rush is designed for streamlining video editing -- and now that workflow is available for Android users. Adobe expanded Premiere Rush to the Android operating system, opening up downloads of the video editor through the Google Play Store and Samsung Galaxy App Store.

Adobe Rush brings several of the tools from Adobe’s pro-level video editor, Premiere, to a streamlined platform. While missing a handful of the more high-end features, Rush is designed for editing social media projects, as well as for newbie editors. 

Read more
This is what an iPhone looks like after a year with no screen protector
Ceramic Shield on the iPhone 14 Pro, with light to show scratches.

Apple says its Ceramic Shield glass over the iPhone’s screen is “tougher than any smartphone glass,” but how accurate is this statement? The Digital Trends Mobile team has each been using one of the iPhone 14 series models for the last year and two of us haven’t put a separate screen protector on, while the third member of the team has. Here’s how the screens have held up — and what we think about Ceramic Shield.

Ceramic Shield was first introduced by Apple on the iPhone 12, and it claimed it went “beyond glass by adding a new high-temperature crystallization step that grows nano-ceramic crystals within the glass matrix, increasing drop performance by 4x.” Apple worked with Corning, the same company that makes Gorilla Glass, which is used on many smartphones from other manufacturers, to produce Ceramic Shield. It’s found on all iPhone 12, iPhone 13, iPhone 14, and now all iPhone 15 models.
iPhone 14 Pro — Andy Boxall
No light shows scratches on the iPhone 14 Pro's Ceramic Shield are invisible Andy Boxall / Digital Trends

Read more