You don't need a scanner — your phone camera works fine for most forms and applications. The trick is turning those photos into a single, tidy PDF that portals accept. Here's how to do it for free, without a scanner app.

Take good photos of each page

Lay each page flat on a dark, plain surface in even light (a window works well), hold the phone directly above so the page isn't skewed, and make sure all four corners and the text are sharp. Take one photo per page. Good photos here save a lot of cleanup later.

Turn the photos into a PDF

Open Image to PDF, add your page photos in order (each becomes a page), and download a single PDF. If your phone is an iPhone saving HEIC files, use HEIC to PDF instead — it decodes and combines them in one step. Nothing is uploaded; the PDF is built in your browser.

Combine and tidy multiple documents

If you already have separate PDFs to add, merge them into one. To standardise mixed page sizes, resize the PDF to A4. Put pages in the right order before combining so the final document reads correctly.

Shrink it for the upload limit

Phone photos are large, so a multi-page scan can be several megabytes. Run the PDF through Compress PDF or a target like 500 KB to fit the portal's limit while keeping the text readable. Always check the accepted format and size in the form's instructions.