Turn page photos into a PDF
A photo of a form might also show your desk, another letter or a reflection. Private document scanner lets you trim those edges and turn the photos into a new PDF. It keeps the photos on your device. Anything you leave visible on the page will still be readable.
1. Take clear photos
Lay each page flat in even light and hold the camera square to it. Keep other paperwork and reflections out of the picture. Check whether your camera saves location data or your photo app uploads originals to cloud storage. Making a PDF here won't change those photos or their saved copies.
2. Add your pages
Open Private document scanner and choose JPEG, PNG or WebP photos under Page photos. You can add more photos later, up to 12 in one PDF. Each photo can be up to 8 MiB and 12 million pixels; together they must stay within 32 MiB and 48 million pixels. MiB is a file-size unit, slightly larger than MB. Try fewer pages if your phone struggles.
3. Trim and straighten each photo
Choose Edit beside a page. Use Rotate 90 degrees to turn it upright and Straighten (degrees) for a slight tilt. Enter the percentage to cut from each edge and watch the preview. The crop applies after rotation and straightening. The tool doesn't find page edges or fix a photo taken at a steep angle, so retake a badly skewed page.
4. Put the pages in order
Use Move up, Move down and Remove to arrange the document. Check page numbers, signatures and small print, especially near cropped edges. If you cut away too much, Reset this page clears that page's crop and rotation.
5. Download and read the PDF
Press Make PDF, then Download PDF. Open that download and zoom in on every page. Large pages shrink to at most four million pixels each, with a 40-million-pixel limit for the whole PDF, so check that small text is still clear. The finished file must also fit within 32 MiB. It contains pictures of the pages, with no searchable or selectable text and no fill-in form fields.
6. Cover any private details still on the page
Cropping only removes what lies outside the kept rectangle. For a name, account number or other detail inside it, use PDF redaction and check the new download again. Add a purpose watermark only if the recipient accepts it. Send the final copy you checked.
Good to know
The scanner doesn't find private information for you. Visible names, faces and writing remain. It leaves out the original photo filenames and saved camera details, including location tags, but the new PDF can still have ordinary properties such as the program that made it. An image-only PDF also won't provide the text that search and screen readers need.