Scanning with Notes App - Files too large

I ran into the same today when scanning some written presentation notes from my notebook. I always used Notes for this, and it created files that were very acceptable in size and could be send by e-mail (<2MB for 3 pages). Now a 3-page scan gave me a whopping 24MB file. So I tried to find out what was the difference with scans I made last year, when still on iOS 17. Turns out that with iOS 17, the scanned images in your pdf are compressed with (lossy) jpeg compression. This greatly reduces file size. On iOS 18 however, images in pdf files are compresed with zlib (lossless) compression, which gives (in theory) sharper results because it's losless, but the difference is only noticable when your really zoom in in your document. And the drawback is that files are much much bigger than with jpeg compression. I don't know if this is a bug or Apple changed this 'by design', but for me, it makes Notes unusable for document scanning for now.

The good thing is: I found a workaround, and it's not by changing the filter to grayscale or b/w. Instead of using the notes app, I use the Files app for scanning. Somehow the Files app still uses jpeg compression, so gives the smaller files I was used to. And one other thing I found out (and I don't know if iOS 17 handled this the same way): when I scan a document, I think (not sure) I used to put as much of the document as I could into the camera frame, so it would just fit the screen. Holding the camera still for a moment, and it would auto-crop the page to it's borders. But this gives me high resolution images, and I don't need a really high resolution for just some written notes. Holding the camera a bit further away, where my document is only taking up part of the screen, will still auto-crop (when on a background with enought contrast to my document), but greatly reduce image size and thus pdf size, while still being sharp enough.

So, to sum up the steps to get smaller files when scanning:

• Use the Files app for scanning. Don't use Notes, it's broken
• Hold your camera further away from your document. This will give you smaller scans.

If you already have large files, consider sending them as links. In this way, you don't need to compress files, and recipients can download the original color file. You can get the shareable link in Google Drive, iCloud, etc.

Preview is worth trying to compress files too. It offers a "reduce file size" feature. Go to "File" > "Export", choose "Reduce File Size" from the "Quartz Filter" menu.

Sometimes it might export a larger file... PDF compressors are also a good option, because they can compress files in batches, saving much time.

[Edited by Moderator]

Chloe_Lee wrote: "...Hoping Apple will see my comment..."

Abandon all hope as we're just users here. Instead:

Feedback - Notes - Apple

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