Show HN: Open Scanner, an open-source document scanning app for iPhone
(github.com)254 points by ductionist 2 days ago
254 points by ductionist 2 days ago
TIL it’s in the files app. I always use the notes app for this. You can either long-press on notes and tap scan document or go into a random note, scan a document, and export it as pdf from there
In case anybody was wondering, you can also do this in Android via the Google Drive app. Click "New" and then "Scan".
Thanks so much for crafting and sharing this app. Was just chatting with a friend about scanning via Notes[1], which is a little clunky for quickly and seamlessly sharing a scan.
A few feature suggestions:
* Allow setting default color mode (having to switch manually to B&W every time adds another step)
* Allow setting setting type (PDF, JPG, TXT) and size (Original, Medium, Small) in Sharing Options à la Scanner Pro[2]
* Allow sharing immediately after scanning rather than first having to tap Save then opening the image again
You can actually directly scan in the Files app from the triple dots menu in the upper right corner, this will allow you to directly scan as a PDF file.
I love Apple, but this is so Apple: hidden powerful functionality you'll only know about through word of mouth or intentional exploration in the UI.
It’s also documented in the iPhone User Guide.
You can get it through Books or on the web:
https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/iphone/iphf2746307f/18...
Exploring the UI is a perfectly valid method of discovering functionality. What’s the alternative? The phone interrupting you every 2 steps saying hey by the way, you can also do this and this from here?
Same with number-range call blocking. Gotta pay $4 but it saves you from scammers and other serial callers
And you can use the Shortcuts app to create a home screen shortcut for it.
You can long-press the Files icon and access it from the iOS context menu too!
Came here to say the same. I wonder how this app compares. One perk this app provides is you have a button to press from your home screen. With the native feature, you could set up an Apple shortcut to start scanning a document and create a button on your home screen.
Congrats on the release. Open Scanner looks like a good alternative to the paid TurboScan (it's what I've been using for over 5+ years):
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/turboscan-pro-pdf-scanner/id34...
Looks incredible! As someone preparing a large iPhone-based scanning project, this couldn’t have come at a better time. I’m a longtime CamScanner user, but will happily move to something open source if it delivers on its promises. Will try it out asap!
Re:the common “why not just use the native functionality” questions, I think the simple answer is scale. If I want to scan a random receipt I’d use Apple, but as we all know well, Apple rarely caters to power users — someone scanning multiple times a day or for hours at a time will almost definitely be better served by a dedicated app.
Side note: these (two!!) devs are killing it. Great communication (their privacy policy is top-notch), great styling, and they have a whole roster of neat apps lined up, including an Apple Vision release. Thanks for putting them on my radar, OP! https://pencilresearch.com/
I am partial to QuickScan[1] as it is free and has no ads. It does not seem to be open source though.
QuickScan looks great and has loads of features, but it might be more accurately described as "nagware" since a donation request is shown on every export until a donation is made (after which point it can be disabled via Settings > Other settings > "Do not show donation request"). Nothing wrong with that; if I were a user I'd certainly donate, just wanted to let other potential users know.
It's funny how we tolerate Winrar doing that but on the phone it seems more annoying.
Who's "we"? It seems it's only Windows users. Linux users don't use Winrar, and I don't know offhand of any nagware like this in Linux-land.
I've donated twice but i havent done the big amount so it still bothers me
Does it support page dewarping[1] and 1bit color Palette PNG in PDF so shrink filesize[2]? I would love to See these features...
1: https://github.com/LittleTrickster/PDF-Doc-Scan/issues/17#is...
2: https://github.com/LittleTrickster/PDF-Doc-Scan/issues/7#iss...
Why is my first thought that this has a clever backdoor to find passwords and crypto keys?
For Android I recommend "OSS Document Scanner" it is just as good as MS Lens and CamScanner in my experience.
Awesome that it's free, open-source, and ad-free. My understanding is you have to pay to publish even free apps on the App store - are the devs providing this at their own expense?
Dev here - we already have a developer membership from our other (monetized) apps, so releasing this doesn't cost us any additional money.
What benefit does Open Scanner have over using the "Scan Document" iPhone shortcut? For sync/sharing I usually just AirDrop the scan to my Mac.
I will certainly give it a try, because I am not 100% happy with SwiftScan anymore.
The biggest threat to these kinds of apps is getting bought by one of the big app boutique shops and being neglected.
SwiftScan started as an ambitious project by a small shop of dedicated people, but since it has been sold it started to show some cracks.
Related tangent: IF you already use Dropbox, FYI the Dropbox iOS app's scan feature is excellent.
That’s right, scans don’t appear in Photos. You can delete pages or scans with the usual iPhone controls (swipe left to show the Delete button, etc.)
There is Paperparrot[1] which allows to directly scan documents or add existing documents to your paperless instance from your phone.
There’s also swift-paperless: https://github.com/paulgessinger/swift-paperless
A workaround is to export the PDF to a network folder which is configured as the paperless-ngx "consumption" folder.
Not sure how this compares to the scanner in the native Files app? https://www.macrumors.com/how-to/scan-documents-ios-files-ap...