Scannable by Evernote – A Must Have App

Scannable by Evernote is one of those iOS apps that you probably don’t realize you need until you try it, and then, you don’t know how you ever lived without it.

As we’ve said here before, we hate clutter that comes from all the paper we have to deal with.  Business cards, receipts, whiteboard presentations, the list goes on-and-on.  At home, it’s easier to deal with all the paper if you have a good desktop scanner like the Brother ADW-1500 Scanner we recently reviewed here. But on the road, it can be more of a problem. That’s where Scannable comes in.  Scannable uses the camera on your iOS device to take a picture of the item, but unlike the built in camera, Scannable displays a blue area on your screen.  You line up the image in the blue area and it automatically detects the edges of the image, crops it and straightens it out, all in a matter of seconds.  This process works best when the image is on a contrasting background.  On those rare occasions when Scannable has trouble recognizing the image, there is a manual mode that gives you a little more control over the process but Scannable works so well we hardly ever have to use it.  Once the scan is complete you get additional options to fine tune it by rotating the image, cropping it and renaming the image.

If you haven’t guessed by now, Scannable is brought to you by the same folks who run Evernote and they have done an excellent job of integrating Scannable into the Evernote platform. With a single tap, the scanned image is added to your Evernote account, and in the case of business cards, the name, phone number and email address is magically extracted from the image and used to create a contact, all of which can be exported to any number of applications including Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.  Once in Evernote, it’s just one more click to add the information to your contacts as a permanent record.  Anyone that has ever been to a business conference, trade show or large meeting and has come away with dozens of cards will immediately appreciate the time saved by this application.

Scannable by Evernote was updated today (Septemeber 15, 2015) and adds the ability to scan a white board by pointing your phone and taking a picture, along with the usual performance improvements.

The Bottom Line

We have tried many of gthe scanner apps that are available and we think Scannable by Evernote is one of, if not, the best out there.  If you are a road warrior or just someone who likes to stay organized, Scannable by Evernote is a must have app for you.  It is available for the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch and is a free app available in the App Store.

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