How to Scan a Recipe with Your iPhone
Lay the recipe flat on a dark surface, capture it with PDF Scanner in Document mode, adjust contrast so the print separates from aged paper, and export a PDF. For a printed card or cookbook page, OCR can also produce searchable text; for a handwritten card in a relative's cursive, expect the image to be the reliable part and the recognized text to need correction.
Tools used: Crop & perspective fixRotateBrightness & contrastOCR text recognitionPDF conversionJPG export
Step by step
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Flatten the card and pick a dark background
Index cards curl at the corners after years in a box. Press the card flat and put it on a dark surface so the white edges are unambiguous to edge detection.
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Watch for the kitchen's overhead light
Recipe cards live in kitchens, which are lit from directly above, so your own shadow lands on the card. Move to the side of the light before capturing.
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Capture the whole card square-on
Fill the frame with the card but keep all four corners inside it. Cropping afterwards keeps more detail than zooming in before the capture.
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Adjust contrast for aged or stained paper
Old cards go yellow, and a splash of oil leaves a translucent patch. Brightness & contrast pulls the printing back out of a discolored background. Push it until the text is crisp, then back off before the stain turns into hard black blotches.
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Run OCR if you want the recipe searchable
Printed recipes from a cookbook or a typed card recognize well. Auto-detect handles mixed-language cards for Latin, Korean, Chinese (Simplified) and Japanese scripts.
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Export the collection as one PDF
Scan a whole recipe box into one document and export a single multi-page PDF, so the collection stays together instead of scattering into individual images.
Frequently asked
- Can it read my grandmother's handwritten recipe card?
- The scan will be a faithful image; the text recognition may not be. OCR is built for printed type, so neat printing often works and cursive frequently does not. Scan it anyway — a clean, straightened, high-contrast image is the part worth preserving.
- How do I handle a stained or greasy card?
- Raise contrast to separate the ink from the discoloration, and accept that a stain sitting directly on top of the writing cannot be removed, only made less distracting. Capturing under even, indirect light keeps the stain from also catching a highlight.
- What about a recipe in a thick cookbook?
- Use Book mode for a bound cookbook so the curved gutter near the spine is handled as a book page rather than a flat sheet. Loose cards and printed sheets belong in Document mode.
- PDF or JPG for recipes?
- PDF if you are archiving a box of cards as one file or printing them. JPG if you are sending one recipe to someone in a message. Both export free with no watermark.
- Is the recipe uploaded to a server?
- No. PDF Scanner works entirely on the iPhone using Apple's built-in frameworks, so scanning works with no connection and nothing is transmitted.
Last updated 2026-07-28