How to Scan a PDF on iPhone (Files App Scanner)
The short answer
Scan a PDF on an iPhone with the built-in scanner in the Files app — it photographs the page, flattens it, and saves it as a PDF in seconds. No apps, no accounts. The scanner is hidden in the Files app’s menu, but once you know where it is, it’s the fastest way to digitize paper on an iPhone.
Scan to PDF with the Files app
- Open the Files app and browse to the folder where the PDF should live.
- Tap the three-dot menu (top right) → Scan Documents.
- Hold the phone over the page — it auto-captures when it detects the edges.
- Scan more pages if you have a stack (it keeps adding), then tap Save.
That’s it. The scan lands in the folder as a PDF, ready to share, sign, or file. The edge detection is genuinely good — it straightens the page and flattens shadows automatically.
The scanner’s settings worth knowing
- Color / Grayscale / Black & White — choose before scanning. B&W is smallest and fine for text pages.
- Auto vs. Manual capture — auto works in good light; switch to manual for receipts on dark desks.
- Retake — tap a thumbnail to rescan a bad page before saving.
That’s the whole feature set — Apple kept it deliberately simple.
The honest part
Three things worth knowing:
- A scan is a photo of the page. The text inside isn’t searchable or selectable until you run OCR. Fine for filing and sending; wrong if you need to copy words out.
- Light matters more than the camera. A flat, well-lit page scans dramatically better than a dim one — the scanner’s flattening can’t fix shadows.
- Scans are heavy. A 10-page scan is a chunky PDF. If email rejects it, shrink it before sending.
And the general workflow — phone scanning on any device — is covered in scanning documents to PDF.