In our Apps of the Year series, The Next Web team shares personal recommendations for our favorite apps of 2014.
On the rare occasions I come across paper documents these days, I make sure to scan them with my phone immediately for easy reference and retrieval. I’m terrible at filing things away physically, so this system works better for me than anything else I’ve tried. My app of choice for the job? Scanbot.
Getting a good scan is easier than taking a picture — simply point your camera at a document and hold still; Scanbot will determine the paper’s edges and capture a sharp image automatically, without requiring you to straighten or crop the shot. The app can also convert the image to black-and-white or grayscale.
Scanbot also handles multi-page documents well: just scan several pages one after another, and you can save them all into a single PDF for easy sharing. Having moved house recently, I’ve found the app to be indispensable for saving my rental agreements and receipts through my arduous relocation.
Once I’ve scanned a document, Scanbot automatically uploads it to my Dropbox and Evernote accounts, so they’re available on my other devices and desktops.
Plus, Scanbot has more tricks up its sleeve, including text recognition (OCR) and smart naming to make it easy to search your scanned content, unlocked with a $4.99 in-app purchase.
Regardless of how often you work with paper, Scanbot makes light work of digitizing your printed documents and is a must-have tool for your smartphone. Did I mention that it’s free?
You can see the rest of the ‘Apps of the Year’ recommendations in this series here
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