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How to scan a passport with your phone to PDF or JPG

Scanning a passport with a phone

No scanner at home? You can still scan your passport with your phone. The passport scanner detects the 4 corners of the page, straightens it to the real passport size and places it on an A4 page, ready to export as PDF or JPG for a visa or any online application.

How to scan a passport with your phone

  1. Open your passport at the data page, the page with your photo and two lines of code at the bottom. Put it on a dark table.
  2. Go to the passport scanner and tap Take photo to open the camera, or Choose images, PDF if you already have a photo.
  3. The tool detects the 4 corners of the page. If they do not match, drag the 4 dots onto the corners and tap Done.
  4. Choose a color mode and an A4 layout, add a protective watermark if you like, then tap Download PDF or Download JPG.
Passport scanner detecting the 4 corners of the data page
The 4 dots land on the corners of the page by themselves, drag one if it is off. Specimen passport.

The page is straightened to the real passport size

Passports follow an international standard: the data page measures 125 × 88 mm. A photo taken at an angle is straightened back to this exact ratio, so the scan is not distorted and the two lines of code at the bottom stay straight and readable for machines.

Option Use it when
A4 portrait, 2 passport pages per A4 page Online applications, printing
A4 landscape, 2 pages side by side You need the data page and the facing page
Actual size The printout must match the real passport
1.5× larger You want bigger, easier to read text on paper
Photo of a passport and the scan at real size on A4
A photo taken at an angle on a table becomes a straight scan on an A4 page.

Scan several passport pages

Need the visa page or pages with entry and exit stamps too? Tap Take photo or Choose images, PDF again to add more, with no page limit. You can pick several photos at once, or even a passport PDF you scanned before: each page is cropped and straightened. Reorder or delete pages, then download one multi-page PDF.

Which color mode to choose

After the scan

File too heavy for the upload form? Compress the PDF to the size it asks for. Need to send your passport together with other papers in one file? Scan them with the free online scanner and combine everything with Merge PDF. See also how to photograph a passport without glare.

Frequently asked questions

Is a passport scanned with a phone clear enough?

Yes for online applications, as long as you shoot in good light without glare. The tool straightens the page, sharpens the text and exports a 300 dpi JPG or an A4 PDF.

Which passport page should I scan?

Usually the data page: the one with your photo and the two lines of machine-readable code at the bottom. If the application asks for more pages, add them one after another.

Do I need an app to scan my passport?

No. The passport scanner runs in your phone browser and the images are processed on the device.

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