HEIC (High Efficiency Image Container) is the default format iPhones use since iOS 11. Most Windows PCs, older Android phones and web forms can't open HEIC files — this tool converts them into a universally-compatible PDF that anyone can view.
Common uses
- emailing iPhone photos to non-Apple users
- submitting photos to Windows-based work portals
- archiving iPhone camera roll to PDF
- combining trip photos into a single shareable document
Related tools: people scanning this often also need WebP to PDF and BMP to PDF. Everything runs in the same browser tab — the scans stack in one PDF.
How this scanner works
When you tap "Use camera", the scanner asks your browser for a MediaStream at up to 4K resolution. Once you approve the permission prompt, the live viewfinder shows a soft blue overlay wherever it detects a rectangular document — this is real-time edge detection using OpenCV.js running in a Web Worker, so the UI stays smooth even on a mid-range phone.
When you press the shutter, the frame is grabbed with ImageCapture.takePhoto() (falling back to a canvas snapshot on browsers without ImageCapture). The scanner then runs a Canny edge detector, finds the largest four-point contour, and warps the image to a proper rectangle using a 3×3 perspective homography — the same math a flatbed scanner uses when it aligns a slightly-crooked document.
Filters, cropping, page reordering and PDF assembly all happen client-side in JavaScript. The finished PDF is generated by jsPDF and offered as a browser download. Because every step runs in your device, we could not access your document even if we wanted to — there is no network round trip once the page has loaded.
Works on iPhone, Android, and desktop
Works on any modern browser: Safari on iPhone and iPad, Chrome on Android, Chrome and Edge on Windows, Safari and Chrome on macOS, Firefox and Brave on Linux. No install, no App Store, no Play Store — a URL is the entire onboarding step.
iPhone (Safari): iOS 14.5+ gives the crispest capture because Safari exposes ImageCapture.takePhoto(), which pulls a full-resolution still directly from the camera hardware. On older iOS Safari falls back to a canvas snapshot of the video preview — still 1080p, still enough for a legible scan of a printed page.
Android (Chrome / Edge / Samsung Internet): 4K capture is supported on flagship phones from 2021 onwards; older devices are automatically stepped down to 1080p. If you have a rear-camera Android phone, the scanner picks it automatically ({ facingMode: 'environment' }) so you do not have to flip the camera manually.
Desktop / laptop: Webcam capture works, but for desktop the drag-and-drop upload path is usually faster — drop a JPG, PNG, HEIC, WebP, BMP or TIFF into the drop zone and the scanner pipeline (edge detect → warp → filter → PDF) runs on the uploaded image without needing a live camera.
Why scan documents online instead of using an app
Runs entirely in your browser. No signup, no upload, no watermark. Every scan is processed on your own device.
Most people looking for a free document scanner end up on one of three apps: CamScanner, Adobe Scan or the built-in scanner in Google Drive / Apple Notes. Each has real drawbacks that a browser-based tool sidesteps.
CamScanner is the market leader but has a difficult history: it was removed from the Google Play Store in August 2019 after Kaspersky found the "Necro" trojan module in one of its SDKs, and although CamScanner was later reinstated with the SDK removed, the free tier still watermarks every scan and pushes subscription upsells. This tool has no watermark, no signup, no upsell.
Adobe Scan and Microsoft Lens are cleaner options but require an Adobe or Microsoft account to save scans as PDF, and force the file through Adobe Document Cloud or OneDrive. Your document leaves your device.
Google Drive scan and Apple Notes scan are convenient but ecosystem-locked — Google Drive scan is Android-only, Notes is iOS-only, and neither lets you export as a two-sided ID card PDF or apply the same B&W scanner filter across every page.
A browser scanner solves the union of these problems: no install, no account, no vendor lock-in, no upload of your document, and no watermark. Whether you are on iPhone, Android, Windows or Mac, the tool is the same URL.
Tips for the best scan
- Drag multiple HEIC files at once — each becomes a PDF page.
- Reorder pages from the thumbnail strip before saving.
- For colour-critical photos use Original filter; for text-heavy photos Auto adds sharpness.