Pocket Scanner Review

Pocket Scanner touts itself as a "must have" PDF scanner, and having tried it out I think that's not an inaccurate claim. The confusion on my part had more to do with all the talk of "documents" and the like, which I normally associate with DOC formats. So, in my mind, I was expecting an actual scanner that would actually scan documents and create text files. That is not what this does. Even so, this is still a great little app for anyone that needs to read documents on-the-go.

What Pocket Scanner actually does is convert photos (either taken in-app or previously) into PDF documents that can be linked together for easy reading. A cynic might question its usefulness since anyone could simply take a photo of a document and keep it on their phone, but the process a little more involved than that. Images can be cropped manually, contrast and other levels can be adjusted to make text easier to read and images can be linked together as one group or file in order to keep everything organized. Another clever feature is the ability to link the device to a computer through wi-fi, which lets users transfer documents between the two without the need to connect wires to anything.

Actually using the app is pretty straight-forward, with lots of big, easy to read icons that are rather self-explanatory. If a user ever gets stumped, there's also a fairly extensive in-app help index. Of course, being easy to use isn't the same as being useful, but Pocket Scanner is both in this case. "Scanning" a document takes as much time as snapping a photo, and tweaking the image's contrast levels and cropping is a snap. On top of that, the app is also well suited to make organizing these files as easy as possible. Individual images can be added, removed and shuffled around an existing document, documents can be renamed and have various other values adjusted, an in-app web browser lets users go online and download web documents directly to their device... it's amazing just how much thought and consideration was put into this thing.

The initial start-up can be a little confusing at first, but by playing around and consulting the help guides users will be utilizing Pocket Scanner's full potential in minutes. I'm admittedly not a huge "Read important work-related files outside of work" kind of guy, mostly because I don't have that kind of job, but even I'm excited by this app's usefulness. I can only imagine how much of a boon this would be to someone with a job that involves lots and lots of reading.