Scan Documents with the Files app and Lock it as a PDF

In this video, I’m going to show you how you can scan a document as a PDF on the iPad and iPhone, and then how you can lock that PDF, basically add a passcode to that PDF. I’ll also show you how you can export or share a PDF document that you scanned with the Notes app. This is traditionally how we scan a document through the Notes app. But you don’t have to. But if you did, how you can share that PDF out of the Notes app and then add a passcode to it again. Let’s see how this works on the iPad. And then we’ll go over to the iPhone. Let’s go to my iPad. Now traditionally, what we would do or what most people do is they will use the Notes app to scan a document and then save that into the Notes app. And it’s a great way to save a document. But let’s say you just wanted to scan a document as a PDF. This is what we’re going to look at what you no longer have to use the Notes app, what you can do is you can scan a document directly into your files using the files app. And then from there, we able to do is lock it.

So I have I’m going to turn on my overhead camera here. I have this document here. And what I would like to do is scan it. So I’m going to go back over to my iPad, I don’t want to place this into note, I just want to scan it as a PDF. To do that, all we have to do is just open up the files app here. And then we go to the folder that we want to scan into or save the PDF to, I’m going to save this into my PDFs folder. And then all you have to do is just go over to that folder. And when you long press, you’re going to get a contextual menu. And one of the options here is to scan a document. When I select this, it’s going to open up the camera and then I can scan that document and it’s going to save it as a PDF. That’s pretty much all there is to it. Let’s go ahead and do that. So I’m going to tap on it. We can see the camera opened up, I position it properly here. It just scanned it. I tap on save. And we have my scan document I can name it. Now I’m just going to leave it as scan document. Now from here, what I’d like to do is lock it how do we lock this? Well, all we need to do is just open it up. So I tap on it to open it up, we can see that it is now open. And then we go over to our carrier here next to the name.

This is the little arrow that points down. When I tap on it, what I’m able to do is lock it. From here I just put in a password, or retype that password and that PDF will now be locked. Now once you lock a document, you can’t unlock it, you have to take it to a Mac to unlock it. So you can lock it on the iPad and the iPhone as you’ll see shortly, but you can’t unlock it. Now, I mentioned that before we go to the iPhone, I mentioned that we can also save a PDF out of a notes document and then lock it. How do we do that? Well, let’s go over to my notes app, tap on it. And now I go over to a document that has a PDF in it, I have my vaccination card here, all I need to do is just tap and hold on it. And then we share it. And when we share it, I can select to save it to my files app. And when I save it to my files app, I place it where I want, I’m going to leave it in my PDFs here. I tap on save. And now that document when I go to the files app is going to be in my PDF folder, I want to lock it all I have to do is just open it up and then go to the caret. And I’m able to lock it. So that’s how we scan a document directly into the files app, as well as how we can save a PDF document from the Notes app to our files app.

And then once it’s in the files app, we’re able to lock it. Let’s see how this is done on an iPhone. As you can imagine it works very similar. So I’m going to go over to my iPhone here. And what I would like to do is scan again, this document here so I have my iPhone here. From here, what I do is I go to the files app, I’m going to scan this directly into my files app. So I swipe down, I have files up here towards the top here. I tap on it. And now I go to the folder where I want to save it I’m just gonna go to on my iPhone here. The folder here is empty. But let’s go ahead and scan a document that document to do that a long press and then you’re going to see scanned documents. I tap on it. I scan the document, I have to move it a little bit away there. There we go. Let’s just go ahead and manually scan this. This is how I can go on set document, I’m going to keep the scan, there is my scan, I tap on save. And there it is. Now I want to lock it, all I have to do is just tap on it, I go to the caret here, says the arrow that points down. And from here, I’m able to lock the PDF.

Once I lock it, I enter in a password, I verify it with the same password and that PDF is now locked. And again, just like with the iPad, I can’t unlock it on the iPhone. So that’s how we scan a document directly into the iPhone. Now we can also do the same thing that we did on the iPad, we can save a PDF that’s in a note to the files app and then lock it. To do that, we go over to our notes app. So I’m just going to swipe up here, we’re going to go to my notes app, I have my vaccination record here, I tap and hold. I share it a share it to my files app here. I place it in the folder that I want, I’m just going to go with on my iPhone here, you can see we have my scan document there. I name it down towards the bottom here. And then I tap on save. And now that document is saved to my files app here. Now if I want to lock it, all I have to do is just open it up, I go to the carrot up towards the top of the document. And from there, I’m able to lock it. So that’s how we can scan a document directly into our iPad and iPhone and then lock it. When we scan it, just scan it as a PDF. And then all we have to do is just open it up from the files app. And we’re able to lock it, we can scan it directly from the files app. Now if you have a PDF in the Notes app, what you can do is exporter, share that PDF outside of the Notes app just long press on it and share it and then you save it to your folder with the files app once it’s in that folder. While you’re able to do is open it up and then you can lock it. And again just remember you cannot unlock a PDF from the iPad and iPhone at least not through iPad os 16 and iOS 16. So that’s how we scan documents and lock them on the iPad and the iPhone