The 30-second perfect scan checklist

Almost every disappointing scan traces back to the photo, not the software. This checklist takes 30 seconds and upgrades everything downstream — auto-crop confidence, text sharpness, enhancement quality.

The checklist

1. Background contrast: pale document → dark surface; dark document → white sheet of paper. Edges need something to be edges against.
2. Clear the stage: 10 cm of empty surface around the page — no pens, cables or second documents inside the frame.
3. Light from a window or off to the side, never your own shadow across the page. (Details.)
4. Shoot from directly above, phone parallel to the paper; small tilts are fine, drama isn't.
5. Fill the frame with the page plus a modest margin — resolution spent on the table is wasted.
6. Tap to focus, hold still, then shoot. Two shots if in doubt; keep the sharper.

Then let the software do its part

Feed the photo to ToPDF: edge detection crops it, perspective correction squares it, enhancement evens the lighting and sharpens the text, orientation turns it upright, and a name is suggested. Good input makes each step confident — you'll mostly just watch it be right.

The three classic violations

• White-on-white (checklist #1): the top cause of edge-detection uncertainty.
• Ceiling light behind you (#3): a soft dark stripe across every scan.
• Standing shots of small cards (#5): an ID floating in a sea of table = mushy text.

Frequently asked questions

Portrait or landscape phone orientation?

Match the document: portrait pages → portrait phone. It maximises pixels on paper — and orientation is auto-fixed later regardless.

Flash: yes or no?

Almost always no for documents — point-blank flash creates a hotspot and kills contrast at the edges. Fix the room light instead; see the low-light guide when there is no light to fix.