The Apple Notes App Turns Into A Scanner, Converter​, And More!

Remember the days when our Notes app was nothing but a mélange of grocery lists, pitch ideas, random thoughts, poems, and context-free reminders? That was all a long time back.

Thanks to the influx of endless features, the present day Notes app is all bulked up to take your Note taking the experience to the next level. Don’t believe us? How about a document scanner, converter, and something that stores all your files, all built in on your iPhone or an iPad? Well, you can thank the Notes app for all this.

The newly updated intuitive app converts and auto-detects all the curves and the edges and clicks a picture-perfect scan of the paper the moment you point it towards your camera and boom you are done. And the best part is you don’t even have to be a tech genius to make it work. Easy peasy lemon squeezy!

Okay, enough small talk, let’s find out how the magic works.

How To Scan Documents Using Notes App On iPhone

• Open the Notes app
• Click the ‘New Notes’ button in the lower right corner
• Tap the + icon encased in a circle to add an attachment to your notes
• Pick ‘Scan Documents’ from the popup
• Place the document you want to scan in front of the camera
• The moment scanner detects the edges; it’ll apply a semi-translucent yellowish overlay on top of the document and keep adjusting it in real time and…dare I say? AR.
• You do get an option to adjust corners of the scan via drag points, but it’s not required as Notes is already doing its thing.
• Once the scan is complete, it will move down to the lower left corner, and you can see the final product by tapping on it.
• Once you are satisfied, press ‘Done’ or Retake (if you aren’t) at the top of the screen

And since PDF converters are the bane of my existence, I find the option to saved the scanned documents as PDF a real boon.

How To Save Your Note As A PDF

• Assuming your Notes app is still open…
• Tap the Note with your scanned docs and then click on the scanned document to get an expanded view of it.
• Once you can scroll through all your scanned docs, press the Share button in the upper right corner of the screen.
• Next, press the Create PDF button along the bottom of the share sheet.
• You’ll now see a preview of your scan in a PDF format.
• In case you feel like getting creative, you can draw on your PDF using a Markup Button in the upper right corner.
• Once finished, tap ‘Done’ and you’ll be presented with a popup with options like ‘Save File To’, ‘Delete’ PDF, or ‘Cancel’.
• Choose ‘Save File To’, pick a location to save the file, and tap Add.

How Do Delete Your Notes

Unless you are one of those paranoid little creatures, who are in the habit of saving every document ever, deleting original notes after converting them to PDFs makes total sense. Not convinced? How about freed up space on your iPhone? Now you’re listening! So, there are two ways to delete your Notes mercilessly.

• One – Drag the scanned notes to the left, to the left and off goes the memory-eating monster.
• Two – Put it straight in the (Trash) bin.

How To Save Your PDFs To Another Cloud Service

Looking to save your PDF on a different cloud service than iCloud? First of all, traitor! Secondly, here are the steps

• Choose Create PDF from the share menu and tap the Share Menu button in the lower-left corner of the screen.
• Now you have the liberty of sending your PDF to any app that would have you. And by that, I mean any app that supports the Share menu and the PDF file type.
• So select the folder (or email, or message) you wish to send the PDF to and get, set go!

Well, thanks to this Notes upgrade, you won’t have to sweet talk your office scanner to scan anymore. For those of you waiting to rain on my parade, I know that Notes is still not at par with ‘DEDICATED’ apps like Evernote and Scanbot, and whatnot. But these apps are made to scan, convert and store. And seeing how Apple’s Notes app was meant to be a reminder to document our weirdness, I think the app has come a long way since then! So show some RESPECT!