Cellphones or I should say SmartPhones are doing a lot of works these days like calculator, watch Radio, Music Player, digital camera, Notepad, and of course phone calls and messages etc. Day by day people are relying more on the smartphones than any other things and scanning a document is just another feature to it.
Now smartphones can also be used as the scanner to scan and send the documents, easiest way of doing this is take the photos and share it via email but that won’t give you or recipient the real feel of the scanned documents hence there is an interesting application which can help you scan the text, link and phone number on any document not like the regular scanner though. The name of the application is Smart Scanner, it is a scanning app which allows users to scan printed information, such as magazine articles, emails, book pages, etc. and use its OCR features to send scanned information via email, store it within the app for future reference, make a phone call or open a URL, by simply touching the appropriate link on the resulting scan’s screen. Smart Scanner is not your typical scanning app, in that it focuses on scanning text, data, etc. for real-time use. It also allows users to edit/use the scanned text as they would any regular text file. Unfortunately, Smart Scanner is designed to work on the iPhone 3GS, so those of you who have older iDevice models will have to upgrade (or wait until June 24th) due to the capabilities of the older cameras.
On June 2, 2010, they released an update to the app with the following modifications/enhancements:
- “Append Scan” feature
- Support of different iPhone’s orientations
- Recognition of QR codes
- Recognition from “Saved Photos” album
- Scan History
- UI enhancements
Smart Scanner’s main screen interface consists of the viewfinder with a row of icons/buttons situated at the bottom of the screen (or the right if in landscape mode): An arrow icon which brings users to the scanned text entry page, a toggle switch allowing users to select alpha-numeric text or QR codes, an icon bringing users to their Photo Library and the scan icon, which will be blue for normal scanning and green for scanning appended parts of documents, a feature which really makes this app shine.
Using Smart Scanner is fairly simple: Just point your camera to the text you want to be scanned/recognized and the app’s OCR will highlight the text/data it recognizes in yellow. Users can either tap the (blue/green) scan icon to begin the scan or use their finger to draw a box around the text they want to be scanned. Doing so produces an orange rectangle highlighting the target text. Releasing your finger initiates the scanning process.
To scan full screen, press the scan button on the menu’s toolbar and hold your iPhone steady. Once the text is recognized (it will be highlighted in yellow), touch the scan button to initiate the scan. If the device is not stable enough to take a clear picture, four red border indicators will appear. When the app is able to obtain a clear, steady scan, the borders will turn green and the scan will commence.
After the scanning process, users will have the options to edit the text, copy it for pasting elsewhere, adding to the text using the green Append Scan icon (which allows users to combine multiple scans into one) or conduct a new scan. All scans are saved in the app’s Save History and can be accessed/deleted any time.
Smart Scanner is a great app for scanning multiple pages of text, using the Append feature, but using it to capture a lone phone number, URL or email address is actually counter-productive, unless it’s a list: By the time I open the app and scan the image, I can input 2-3 of the afore-mentioned. Be that as it may, this app is a good tool to have in your arsenal. It definitely earned a place in mine.
