Scanning Documents in iOS 11

[arlo]

If you've ever photographed a paper document to attach to a song in BandHelper, there's now a better way. The Notes app in iOS 11 now includes a built-in document scanning function, which automatically sizes and aligns the image and converts it to a reasonably-sized PDF for optimum display in your account.

To use this, open the Notes app and click the pencil icon to add a new note. Then click the + icon to add a file to the note, and select Scan Documents. Then hold your device above the document and wait for the device to identify its edges and take a picture at the right time. At this point, you can change the options from Color to Grayscale or Black and White, but in my experience this doesn't affect the file size significantly. After the picture has been captured, click Save to return to the note.

Now your document will appear embedded in the note. Click the document to open it, then click the export icon to send it to BandHelper. BandHelper will open, and you can then edit a song and attach the document to the song. At that point, BandHelper will sync it to your account and it will be available on all your devices.