Scanner Pro Text VisionSource: Readdle

What you need to know

  • Readdle's Scanner Pro received a big update today, bringing a new look to the popular scanning app.
  • Users can look forward to searching for text within scans and more.
  • Scanner Pro is now a free app with an in-app purchase that unlocks additional features

Readdle has today given Scanner Pro a big update, refreshing the overall look of the app while also adding some new features along the way. There's a new pricing model in play as well, taking the app freemium for the first time.

Alongside the refreshed interface users can now scan images using OCR and then search for text within pages. Documents can also be found based on that text as well, but the biggest addition is the ability to see all on-page text as plain text. That makes it easier than ever to find the text you're looking for and then copy it out as needed.

With Text Vision, Scanner Pro automatically recognizes the texts of your scans in 26 languages, making it searchable and selectable. This lets you easily share a paragraph from a textbook to your note-taking app or copy any names or numbers from scanned receipts.

Scanner Pro Text SearchSource: Readdle

The biggest news however is probably the change to a freemium model. Scanner Pro is now free for everyone, although there are some limitations in place. Everyone will get the following as part of the free app.

  • Best-in-class quality document scanning
  • Ability to freely share documents (albeit with a Scanner Pro watermark)
  • Sync between devices with iCloud

Those who pay the $19.99 per year for Scanner Pro Plus also get:

  • Watermark free scans
  • Text Vision – on-device OCR in 26 languages
  • Full-text search both in Scanner Pro and in shared PDFs
  • Password protection for both the app and any shared PDF
  • Automatic upload to cloud and workflow

Those who already paid for Scanner Pro in the past will get all of the new features included, for free. But anything added in the future will likely fall under the subscription model.

For anyone who's previously bought Scanner Pro, access to the current set of 'Scanner Pro Plus' features will be free, forever. However, some of the new capabilities that we are going to add in the future might require a subscription.

You can download Scanner Pro from the App Store now.