Scanning documents is a hugely useful life skill for personal reasons, like saving old photos, and professional reasons, like sending official documents or singing a document. In 2024, thanks to smartphones, scanning is really simple.
Many of the best printers also come with scanners built-in, combining two useful features into one device. It's worth checking out the best all-in-one printers, which can come with scanners equivalent to standalone scanners.
Today, we'll learn how to scan a document in an email using a scanner or a smartphone to scan the document before importing it into an email on Gmail, Outlook, and the Apple Mail app.
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Tools and requirements
- A document to scan
- A smartphone or scanner
- An email app
Steps for how to scan a document in Word
- Scan the document
- Open the email app
- Import and send the document
Step by step guide
1. Prepare your document
In order to get a good scan, whether using a smartphone or scanner, your document needs to be free from smudges and other blemishes that might obscure its contents.
If you're planning to scan a document with a smartphone, make sure it is well-lit and the surface is flat. For scanners, ensure the scanning bed is clean, too.
2. Scan the document to your PC or phone
Once you're happy that your document is ready to be scanned, you have two options: scanner or smartphone.
If you have a scanner or printer with a scanner, connect that to your PC or Mac (either via a wired connection or over the internet or Bluetooth), open an app like Windows Scan (or Image Capture on macOS), and check that your scanner has the right settings and can see the document. Scan the document when you're happy and save to a PDF, JPEG, or other format.
On a smartphone, the Google Drive app is a great choice. Simply open the app, navigate to the bottom right to open the camera, a blue box will appear around the document, take the scan, and save. It's that easy.
3. Open your email app
Now that you've scanned the document, go to your email app of choice. We'll be looking at Gmail, Outlook, and Apple Mail, but there are an almost infinite amount of good email apps to choose from – too many, some might say.
In Gmail, start to compose an email, and at the bottom are buttons to either insert files (for PDF scans) or insert images (for JPEG scans). Choose those, open the file, and your scan will appear in your email.
In Outlook, the process is similar. Start a new email, select Insert > Pictures, browse for the file and add it. To add a PDF, select Insert > Object and do the same as for an image.
Finally, in Apple Mail on macOS, start to compose a message and the paperclip icon allows you to add all types of files straight away.
FAQs for scanning a document in an email
Is a standalone scanner necessary?
The answer really depends on how much scanning you want to do, and if you want to be able to scan many sheets of paper at once. If you're doing a lot of scanning and/or need to input a high volume of sheets, then a standalone scanner is the best bet.
After extensive testing, we found that the Canon Maxify GX4020 / GX4050 (US/UK) is the best scanner that money can buy right now, and the Epson ES-C380W is best for home office tasks.
Should I just use my printer's scanner?
Good question. Again, the answer depends: if you need to scan high quality photos we recommend getting a photo scanner, and the same goes for if you need to scan high quality or unusual documents for work.
Many of the best printers come with a scanner built straight in, and all-in-one printers come with a scanner as the name implies. For occasional scanning needs, these are likely to be more than enough.
The Epson EcoTank ET-3850 ranked as our best all-in-one printer, and can pretty much do everything well.
Final thoughts
Being able to scan a document is a really useful life skill and can help in professional and personal contexts, as well as for preserving old documents and ensuring that nothing can be lost.
All major email apps like Gmail, Outlook, and Apple Mail include the ability to easily open and send scanned documents. Improvements in smartphone cameras mean that a document scanner is almost always with you, too.
We hope this guide was helpful, and thanks for reading.
