WhatsApp has a new feature that might be a big boon for hundreds of thousands of users around the world. The Meta-owned company is rolling out an update that brings, among other things, a document scanner to the instant messaging platform. Now, you can simply point your camera at a document and WhatsApp will handle the rest. The catch is—not everyone can access it just yet.
WhatsApp’s document scanner is only available on iPhone at the time of writing. There is no official communication why that is the case, but WhatsApp is known to bring certain features to certain specific platforms before a wider release. That said, there is no word on if the feature is coming to Android smartphones.
WhatsApp document scanner: What is it?
As you can probably tell from the name, the document scanner lets you scan documents and send them across to people. Prior to the update, you needed a third-party app on your device for quick scans like these. Not only was this an additional step, but you were also required to save the photo on your phone and then send it like you would other media. Over the course of time, smartphone cameras have become more functional to let you scan documents directly through them, taking away the pain of installing another application. The need to save to gallery doesn’t go away though adding to your phone’s storage.
Now, you can scan a document directly on WhatsApp without going anywhere else.
WhatsApp document scanner: How to use it?
Firstly, you need an iPhone. Then, you need to ensure you’re running the latest WhatsApp build on it. Once both these conditions are met, just open WhatsApp, head over to one of your chats, click on the plus icon at the bottom from where you type in your texts and go to the “Document” option. You’ll get three options to choose from—choose from files, choose photo or video, and scan document. That last option is the one to go for.
Selecting “scan document” will immediately fire up WhatsApp’s built-in camera which would then ask you to position the document in view. You can use flash should lighting be a constraint. Click the shutter button to take the scan. You can adjust the corners for quick crop to get what you need. If you’re satisfied from the result, keep scan. If not, you can take a retake as well. That’s it. That’s your rundown on how to scan documents on WhatsApp.
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