You can remember the times you ran around looking for a real scanner to get a digital copy of a document. The whole process was tedious and time consuming. But today, your iPhone or Android can get similar results in seconds. Genius Scan and Adobe Scanner are two of the most popular document scanning apps for iPhone.
Both offer the convenience of converting printed text to digital at the push of a button. All you need is decent lighting and the rest of the work will be done by the respective apps. But as we all know, a perfect app is a myth. And even these apps end up having a flaw or two.
When it comes to choosing the best between Genius Scan and Adobe Scan, comparisons are inevitable. So, in this post today, we're going to pit Genius Scan versus Adobe Scan and find out which scanner app is best for you. Without further ado, let's dive straight into the ring.
DIMENSIONS APP
Genius Scan weighs in at around 52MB while Adobe Scan is three times its size at 146MB. You can download them from the link below.
- Download Adobe Scan for iPhone
- Scarica Genius Scan per iPhone
User Interface
Both Adobe Scan and Genius Scan offer a standard splash screen view with all scanned documents on the front. Adobe goes a step further and lets you directly import files and images from the Gallery or Files app.
Genius Scan follows the same routine. It offers recently scanned documents and you can use the camera capture button at the bottom to start scanning pages.
Unfortunately, none of the apps open the camera interface directly to quickly scan documents on the go. Again, it's something to do with how Apple has changed the way you allow apps to access native features like the camera.
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Multi-page scanning
Most scanner apps handle scanning a single page perfectly. But what about multipage scanning? Let's talk about this.
Multi-page scanning is useful when you need to scan a bunch of pages together. And at the same time, you don't want to lose track of the page order. It's an added bonus if the app has the feature of merging all these pages together into one clean PDF file.
After you've scanned a document, Adobe Scan gives you an option to add more pages (yes, that little icon on the left). All you have to do is take a document from your gallery, scan a new one, and then combine them into a PDF.
Genius Scan handles multipage scanning like a pro. You can continue to scan documents and the app will show the number of pages scanned for the pdf file. You can hit the Done button and the app will generate a clean looking pdf file for you to share.
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Scanning documents horizontally
When it comes to scanning documents in landscape mode, Adobe Scan excels at the job. It recognizes the layout of the document almost instantly and captures a snapshot of it. You don't need to touch the document; nor is it necessary to adjust the focus. It does it all automatically, and it does it quite brilliantly.
Speaking of Genius Scan, the app can also recognize documents in landscape mode. However, the recognition isn't quick and easy, and you may have to struggle a bit with the camera position, especially if the background is clear.
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Features
Adobe Scan comes with multiple editing tools that work well - you can rotate images, change colors, and clean up images of unwanted visual artifacts.
All scanned documents go through text recognition upon saving. You can then manually copy the text from the document scans to the iPhone or iPad clipboard, or you can choose to edit them using a PDF editor.
Adobe Scan also offers additional scan modes (Whiteboard, Form, and Business Card) that you can easily switch to while scanning, each with their own specific capabilities. For example, with Business Card, you can scan business cards and easily add details to the Contacts app.
Genius Scan focuses on the security part. You can password protect a PDF before sharing, and you can even enable Face ID authentication to keep prying eyes out.
Other add-ons include document editing, OCR (text recognition), business card scanning, shadow removal, batch scanning, and more.
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Scan quality
Let's talk about distortion and scan quality. Normal blank pages won't make Adobe Scan or Genius Scan sweat. The real test begins when you try to use these apps on glossy documents or colored paper.
In some cases, you may notice color bleeding. Or in worst-case scenarios, the colored background makes the text unrecognizable. The good news is that both Adobe Scan and Genius Scan are free of such problems. In my limited testing time, I found that Adobe was doing a slightly better job than its rival.
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Archiving and exporting
Adobe Scan has limited options. This Adobe app stores everything in the Adobe cloud, giving you less control over managing your documents. You will not be able to edit these documents directly. But luckily, there is the option to Create a Copy using which you can share the PDF version via mail or WhatsApp.
Genius Scan is flexible here. You can export scanned documents to Box, Dropbox, Evernote, Expensify, Google Drive, iCloud Drive, OneDrive, and even OneNote.
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So which one to choose?
Both Adobe Scan and Genius Scan can do the job for you. I have a few observations to make when it comes to choosing between these two. You can use Adobe Scan if you live in an Adobe ecosystem and want the best possible product for scanning documents. Genius Scan is more flexible in the sharing department and has better privacy features.
Further Reading:
- How to use Google Docs in dark mode
- The 5 best apps for signing documents on iOS and Android
- How to scan documents with Android
- The best Android scanner apps
- How to Use Adobe Media Encoder: A Beginner's Guide
