Scan business cards into iPhone:
your ultimate how-to guide

Whether you are gathering sales lead information or looking for a potential business partner, you can still deal with paper business cards today. Luckily, you don’t have to manually enter contact information from business cards into your smartphone or computer. Instead, you can effortlessly digitize business cards with just your iPhone. In this guide, we'll walk you through the simple steps of scanning and organizing business cards just using your iPhone.

How do I scan a business card into iPhone?

The easiest and most obvious way to scan a business card with your iPhone is to take a photo of it. However, an image could be low-quality, and the editing options are limited. Plus, it can be hard to capture text from the card and work with it later (e.g., add to your database, create a contact, share). 

Scanning business cards with dedicated scanner apps like Scanner Pro is more efficient. Such apps allow you to make high-quality scans, easily edit them, organize them into folders, and/or upload them to the Cloud storage. Here is how to scan a business card with the Scanner Pro app:

1. Download Scanner Pro and launch the app.
2. Tap the orange + button to create a new business card scan.
3. Scanner Pro automatically detects the card's borders and takes a photo for you in Auto-capture mode. Optionally, you can switch to Manual mode to take scans by pressing the round Shutter button.
4. Scanner Pro shows the card you’ve scanned at the bottom right. Tap it to preview. Tap Edit to manually adjust the crop, brightness, and contrast settings if needed. Then tap Done.
5. Tap the title at the top to rename the scan and Save.

That’s it—you have a business card scan. You can then easily share it with colleagues through email or a link, save it to the Files folder, or upload it to the Cloud storage. Additionally, you can use the Scanner Pro OCR tool to recognize the card's text and edit it or save it in text format. 

The advantages of scanning a business card over using physical cards:

• It’s a sustainable way of saving business contacts that helps to reduce paper consumption.
• It's easier to save and organize: You can upload scanned business cards to the Cloud and access them from anywhere.
• Quick search: If you use person name/company file naming or OCR them into text format, you can find a needed card in seconds. 

How do I edit a scanned business card?

You can edit a business card photo you have on your iPhone or improve its quality quickly in the Scanner Pro app. You may want to remove a finger or a shadow from the scan. To do this, follow these steps:

1. Launch the Scanner Pro app.
2. Tap the orange + button and choose Photo Library. Then, select any existing business card photo from your Photos/Camera Roll.
3. Tap on the Edit option at the bottom.

Now, choose the editing tools you need:

• To refine borders, tap on the Crop icon; 
• To choose the size of the scan, tap on the Size icon;
• To remove fingers or any other objects from the business card, choose the Eraser tool;
• Use the Filters icon to switch between Photo, Color, Black &White, and Grayscale looks. If the business card has shadows, usually caused by harsh lighting, you can remove them using the Black & White Document or Color Document filters.
• You can also adjust Brightness and Contrast and correct wraps.

How to extract text from a business card scan? 

With the Scanner Pro app, you can also recognize the text on the business card, edit it, or save it as a text file and share it with colleagues. Here is how to do it using the OCR tool:

1. Open the needed business card scan in Scanner Pro.
2. Tap on the Text tab at the top to view all the text extracted from your card. Scanner Pro automatically recognizes text on the document using OCR.
3. Tap Copy all to extract the text into an email or document. Alternatively, tap Share to share a text document with colleagues. 

Can I scan business cards into Outlook?

Yes, you can! Scanner Pro allows you to export scanned business cards to various platforms, including Outlook. Simply select the Share option to export the scanned business card and choose Outlook as the destination. 

How do I digitize my business card?

There are two ways to digitize a business card. The first is to scan it with a reliable scanner app - please see the guide above for how to do this. This way, you will have a high-quality scanned version of your card to share online. The second way is to create a digital business card on a dedicated platform. This will require more time and effort, but you will have an interactive business card containing your information and links to your portfolio, social media accounts, and any other websites you need. 

What is a digital business card?

A digital business card is a link or web page that contains the person's name, phone number, and other contact information. Unlike a paper business card, it does not have limitations on the amount of information it can contain, like social media links, links to landing pages, etc. It can be shared through a QR code, NFC technology, or a link. 

With Scanner Pro, you can easily scan business cards and organize high-quality scans into folders, upload them to the Cloud storage, or instantly share them with colleagues. Join the community of 10 million users worldwide who have chosen Scanner Pro for all their business scanning needs, from business cards to receipts and contracts. 

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