Scanned PDF Effect
Make a clean, digital-looking PDF look like it came off a real scanner or photocopier. Adds grayscale, paper grain, boosted contrast and a subtle page skew, then rebuilds a downloadable PDF — all in your browser. Nothing is uploaded.
Processed locally — your file never leaves your device
Why Make a PDF Look Scanned?
Sometimes a crisp, born-digital PDF looks too clean. Giving it a scanned appearance is useful when you want a document to look like a physical paper copy — for a consistent, paper-style archive, for mockups and design comps, or simply because a scanned look reads as more "official" in certain contexts. This tool reproduces the tell-tale signs of a real scan without you needing a printer or scanner.
What the Effect Adds
- Grayscale — converts color pages to the gray tones of a black-and-white photocopier (optional).
- Grain / noise — fine random speckle, like toner and paper texture.
- Contrast — deepens blacks and lightens the background the way a scan sensor does.
- Page skew — a small, random rotation per page, mimicking a document fed in slightly crooked.
- Paper tint — an optional warm off-white background instead of pure white.
Choosing an Intensity
Start with Medium for a believable result. Light keeps pages readable and tidy with just a hint of texture; Strong pushes the grain, contrast, and skew for a worn, repeatedly-photocopied feel. Toggle grayscale off if you want to keep color but still add grain and skew.
How It's Built
Each page is rendered with pdf.js, processed pixel-by-pixel on a canvas, then re-assembled into a fresh PDF with pdf-lib. Because the output is a flattened image of each page, the result is a true picture-style scan — selectable text is intentionally removed, exactly as a real scan would be.
Privacy
All rendering and processing happen in your browser. Your PDF is never uploaded, so it's safe for private documents.