GoKawiilYou have less than a week to finish filing your taxes. There's still enough time for you to collect all your documents and file them with a free tax software option (without resorting to an AI chatbot). But what if you need to sign and scan physical versions of your tax documents?
When you just have to put your signature on a sheet of paper but don't have a standalone scanner handy, the easiest way is right in your pocket: Just use your iPhone to turn images into PDFs.
Yes, your iPhone doubles as a document scanner. It may not produce images as sharp as a dedicated scanner would, but it does a respectable job, even when the phone is positioned at odd angles, trying to capture text. iPhones have had this hidden feature since iOS 11 launched in 2017, but as the cameras built into Apple phones have improved, so has their ability to take decent scans of documents and turn them into PDFs you can email.
You won't need to download additional software or pay for a third-party app -- Apple's Notes app, which comes preinstalled on iPhones, does the trick. The good news is that it's quick and easy to scan a document, save it, and send it wherever it needs to go. If you've kept your phone up to date with iOS 26, it's easy to use this feature. Keep in mind that the process will be different if you haven't upgraded past iOS 17, but we'll walk you through it.
Here's how to scan a document with your iPhone.
Tap the paperclip icon to bring up the vertical menu that includes the "Scan Documents" option. Zooey Liao/CNET
Scan a document with your iPhone or iPad
To scan a document with your iPhone or iPad, first place the document on a flat surface in a well-lit area.
Open the Notes app and either open an existing note or start a new one by tapping the New Note button in the bottom right corner (pencil-in-square icon). If you're on iOS 26, tap the Attachments button (the paperclip icon), then tap Scan Documents. On iOS 17 and earlier, instead of the Attachments button, tap the Camera button at the bottom of the screen (or, if you're editing a note, the same Camera icon above the keyboard), then tap Scan Documents.
This will open a version of the Camera app that just looks for documents. Once you position your iPhone over the document you want to scan and place it in view of the camera, a yellow rectangular layer will automatically appear over the document, showing approximately what will be captured. Hover over the document for a few seconds, and the iPhone should automatically capture and scan the document, but you can also tap the Shutter button in the bottom center. You can scan multiple documents at once if you'd like. When you're done, tap the yellow checkmark in the top-right corner.
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