Scanning to email and to save

[GuyB 2]

Hi, What am I doing wrong? I have 15 sheets of paper which I wish to save in EN, and to send by email to a client. I scanned with EN Android (which produced jpg images), opened the note with EN Windows, Ctrl A to select all attachments, and drag to email. But it only takes the first image. Tried saving attachments, but again it only saved the first image, I worked out that the problem was that EN had given all images the same file name (picture.jpg), which seems to have confused everything. In the end my only workaround (being too lazy to scan them all again with different app) was to rename each image by right-clicking. Even this was made more laborious by Evernote flicking back to the top image after each rename action, so I had to count pages (each image looks very similar on the small preview window). 

Is there an easier way to scan and send multiple jpg images from one note (I mean a single note, not the EN competitor), or should I have saved each sheet to a separate note, which itself is a bit of a faff? Or is it better to use dedicated scanning app, and bypass the EN scanner? 

Many thanks for advice.

Guy

 

 

[gazumped 11,664]

Hi.  I moved this to the Android stream since that was what you were using...

To send 15 pages to someone else,  I'd either

• take the pictures with my device camera (set to a low-res image) and save them to Gallery.  Then go to Gallery and select those 15 and share them by email to that individual.  If you're a paying Evernote member,  BCC the email to your Evernote inbox so you also get a copy in a note.  Or.
• scan the pics to a single PDF file and then send that file by email.

[GuyB 2]

Thank you. I put it in Windows because I was using my PC to copy the documents from EN to email. How do I 'scan the pics to a single PDF file' in EN? I have only been able to get it to scan to jpg. 

Thanks

Guy

[gazumped 11,664]

In Android you can use the Evernote camera to create PDF files of documents,  or if these documents were processed on a desk scanner you should have options to save to a single file (JPG) or save all pages to one file (PDF).  Since PDF's are picture-based files anyway,  converting two or more JPG files to PDF should also be easy if you have a PDF editor of some kind on your PC.

How to capture handwriting and scan documents with your phone

[GuyB 2]

Thanks again,  but I take the pictures with Evernote following the exact same process described in your link. But it saves them as jpg,  not PDF.  I can't convert to PDF because they all have the same file name, picture.jpg, which means I can't download them or copy them until I have renamed each one.  How do I tell EN to save multiple scans to a single PDF? I bet this is easy and I will feel embarrassed when you tell me,  but I can't find the option! 

Thanks 

Guy 

[gazumped 11,664]

Hmmn.  Looks like Evernote changed stuff again - sorry.  No red faces required at our end anyway...

It used to be the case that when you took a picture,  the camera could process the shot as a picture,  a business card,  or a PDF file,  and would give you the choice at a sensible point - like just before you saved the image.

Now it appears that you need to go into Evernote > Settings > Camera from the main app,  and then choose what sort of pictures you want to take.  If you need to take a mixture of cards and PDFs and JPGs you might want to sort out the documents into piles before you start to avoid sore fingers by the end.

If you only want to take one kind of pic that's fine - just choose which type and snap away.  It appears though that the 'automatic' camera is a bit less automatic than it used to be...

[GuyB 2]

Thanks, but settings doesn't give me the option to select pdf (screen print attached). I do appreciate your help with this! But I think I will switch to a dedicated scanner app and see how I get on.

Guy

[gazumped 11,664]

I'm using the current Beta which might be the first time this has been introduced.  Can't remember in detail what the previous options were, but these are the highlights of what happens now -

The camera screen - black because it's flat to my desktop,  and highlights the (few) controls.  Tap the top right icon to toggle between auto (the phone selects the target and optimises the image for OCR) and manual - when you have to do all the work.  Note it says 'tap the image' -after you've taken it- to review it

Here's my Settings screen which gives me document-type choices

And here's what happens if you tap the thumbnail after you take an image - more options,  including document type again!

(That last is a pic of this page before I started typing...)

[GuyB 2]

Thank you very much Gazumped for putting so much time and effort into helping me. Yes, it works! Touching the image at the bottom of the screen does bring up a menu allowing me to choose the format. I don't think I had seen that menu before. If EN are monitoring this conversation, it would be nice to be able to choose multi-page PDF as the default setting.

Thanks again. I wonder how many other EN functions I have not discovered yet!

Guy

 

[gazumped 11,664]

No problem.  I was partly researching this to allow me to blow off some steam at Evernote for messing with the camera processes in this current beta,  but it seems that they were just making things more accessible - provided you know where and when to tap!  I must confess I'm getting to the stage that sometimes I see a feature mentioned around here and can't remember whether it's possible or not... 

 

[Ditsy 0]

This seems to have regressed, I have no option to scan to PDF ?

I've just switched from iOS to Android and I'm hating the Android Evernote experience so much it's got me reviewing Evernote alternatives. Why does Evernote hate Android so much?

Can anyone suggest a decent Android scanning app? I've tried loads and none of them are as good as iOS Scanable was. 

[Dave-in-Decatur 3,958]

Hi, @Ditsy, and welcome to the forums! It depends somewhat on what you're scanning and what you want to do with it. If you're wanting to get text out of documents and into Evernote, I like Text Fairy. It does a decent job of scanning sheets of paper or pages of books and OCRing the text, which can then be shared to Evernote or copied and pasted. If you want images of documents, with their text searchable in Evernote, the Evernote app's built-in camera function can do that. In the app, tap the + to create a new note, and then select Camera. When the camera opens, if the icon in the top right is a mountain-type icon, tap it to turn it into a page icon. This puts it into "automatic" mode, and it will take a picture of a document automatically (a contrasting background is important). You can tap on the captured image to save it as a document or other format, and access settings. Not sure if either of these will meet your needs, but hope it's some help.

[Ditsy 0]

Thanks for the response @Dave-in-Decatur. By this point I've tried a lot of scanning apps, but I don't think I've tried Text Fairy, I'll take a look. 

I'm really struggling without Scannable! I used to bore my family and friends with the wonders of Evernote, but this really feels like a make or break few weeks for me. I now have a scanning backlog because I can no longer pick up the phone and just deal with it. I can't understand Evernote's lack of interest in addressing this. If I'd started using their service whilst using an Android phone they'd have lost my subscription years ago! 

What I'd like to do is save all my document scans to PDFs (never to images), and 99% of the time I don't want that processing that removes the natural image colour (I think it's supposed to make the text easier to read). I'm not too bothered about OCR, I have a detailed tagging system and use descriptive note titles so have never had issues finding items.

If anyone else has any other app suggestions I'd love to hear them. 

 

[GuyB 2]

Hi Ditsy. I am always nervous about recommending apps as they often don't work the same for different people, and because so many seem to know when I recommend them and cease working for me! But I use Scanbot on Android which does OCR (I know you don't need that, but I do!), saves in pdf, and automatically uploads to evernote. It has automatic and non-auto modes, and can be set to multi- or single-page. It seems fussier than evernote in bossing the user to get the correct distance, but it probably produces better output as a result - I have not done a side by side comparison. It doesn't feel quick at uploading, however (turning ocr off might assist this); it uploads in the background. I can't remember if I paid for it originally. I'm not sure about the natural image colour removal. Hope this helps. Guy

[DTLow 5,736]

3 hours ago, Ditsy said:

I'm really struggling without Scannable! I used to bore my family and friends with the wonders of Evernote, but this really feels like a make or break few weeks for me. I now have a scanning backlog because I can no longer pick up the phone and just deal with it.

It seems simple to me

• For IOS, we use Evernote and an external app called Scannable
• For Android, use Evernote and an external app called ????????

Why is this so difficult to adjust to?  There are definitely scanning apps available.  There's no reason for a backlog or "make or break"

This is an older post, but gives some alternatives best-scanning-apps-for-android-and-iphone

>>I don't want that processing that removes the natural image colour

Agreed, I don't like any colour shift.  

I want automatic cropping and pdf generation

[Ditsy 0]

Thanks @GuyB I've taken a look at Scanbot and it's by the far the closest I've seen to Scannable. I'm going to keep using it for a while and see how it goes.

@DTLow it wouldn't be difficult to adjust to if I could find a decent Android app. Scanbot may fit the bill. Something like 50% of the other ones I've tried don't even automatically remove the background, and doing that manually is quite time consuming. 

[gazumped 11,664]

Hi.  There are dozens of scan-to-PDF options out there,  with more and fewer bells and whistles.  Microsoft Office Lens is a good one,  as is Adobe Scan and CamScanner - all Android apps.  Office Lens has a nice crop-and-zoom feature that gets you a good picture of a document even if you aren't at 90 degrees to it.