Scannable – The Scanner in Your Pocket
We all know the pain of scanning through documents using a scanner. Making sure the orientation is right, get the scanner warmed up, then wait a seemingly endless period of time for an average quality PDF file. Want a higher quality? The waiting time goes up exponentially
Scannable solves this problem by scanning documents using your phone’s high quality camera, saving you the time and trouble of going through a traditional scanner.
What does Scannable do?
Scannable is a supplementary app for Evernote, a popular note taking app. Scannable uses your phone’s camera to detect the outline of a document through colour differences, and take a photo of it. Scannable will then flatten the document digitally, if it is skewed in any way, and increase the contrast to allow a clear display of text.
Scannable can be used to scan any documents, as long as they can fit inside the frame of your phone camera. The output file can be set to PDF or image manually, or automatically depending on the way you export the file.
If you scan multiple documents before exporting, Scannable will automatically put the images together into a single PDF file, and you will be able to rearrange the pages if you like.
The resulting document can then be saved to either Evernote (PDF format) or camera roll (image format), it can also be sent through email, or shared through your phone’s default functions.
Scannable also makes a guess on the type of document you are scanning based on its dimensions, and categorise it as receipt, business card, and others. This makes the saved file easy to find later in Evernote.
What does Scannable cost?
Nothing. Scannable is completely free to use. And unlike many other free apps, there are no strings attached. According to this Evernote Forum discussion, if you are not signed in with Evernote in Scannable, all your information will be stored locally, and you won’t have to worry about privacy issues at all.
The two exceptions for when the files would be uploaded to a cloud is when Evernote auto-save is turned on, and when the file you’re scanning is a business card. Neither case would cause a severe privacy concern.
What are the drawbacks?
Scannable does not store anything by itself, as it is supposed to be used in conjunction with Evernote, but it does keep the files locally for 30 days. This function can be turned off in Setting -> Advanced -> Recents. This is not too big of a problem, since you’re most likely to store the scanned files straight away.
Scannable also has a limited way of sharing files to anything other than Evernote. For Apple users, this can be easily resolved by Airdropping the file to a different device.
Scannable is only available for the App Store, meaning Android users won’t be able to enjoy its benefits.
Who should use Scannable?
Everyone! Scanning and saving various documents is an important aspect of everyone’s life, and Scannable makes it extremely easy!
Just got an important receipt from shopping? Scan it and store it, that way you’ll never lose it. Don’t even worry about the crumpled surface, Scannable will straighten it for you.
Received a coupon code that you won’t use for a while? Scan it and save it to Evernote with a reminder set up, that way you won’t forget to use before it expires.
Can’t find a working scanner when that assignment you procrastinated for two weeks is due in 10 minutes? Just scan all the pages and email them to your lecturer as a single organised PDF file, they won’t even be able to tell the difference!
There are many more ways Scannable can improve your workflow. See if you can experiment with it and save some trouble.
Thinking about giving Scannable a shot? Find it here:
