Best Scanner Apps to Digitize Sheet Music

Hi! 👋 This article is from 2018, and since then we integrated a built-in scanner in the Newzik app. It’s super efficient and works perfectly with your favorite sheet music app. That’s probably why it has become so popular among our users! We wrote a dedicated article about it if you want to learn more.

📖 Scanning sheet music with Newzik

Whether you are a performer, a composer, a music librarian or a music teacher, more and more musicians today require digitizing their sheet music, meaning to scan the score they have in hand. Thanks to the scanning apps, the smartphone can now, in fact, be a great scanning tool, with many features that let you create the best result from the page you wish to scan.

We ourselves truly appreciate the yearning to find the best of the best, that’s why we have done some of our own research and chosen a selection of scanning apps which we believe to be the best on the market at present.

1. Scanner Pro

Our favorite app is Scanner Pro. It’s not free but it’s definitely worth the investment. The scan quality is very high, the auto crop is extremely accurate, and the page rearrangement is intuitive, making the entire processing process quick and painless. There are four different filters you can choose from (the grayscale filter usually gives very good results for sheet music). In addition, you get many enhanced features such as distortion correction, brightness and contrast scales.

Download the Scanner Pro App $3.99

2. Scanbot

Our second choice is Scanbot. This basic app is free and offers many scanning options, a very good scan quality, four filter options including the grayscale filter and is overall very user-friendly. In other words, this is a fun app to use! The downside is that processing can sometimes be a bit slow, so you may have to be patient. The full version – Scanbot Pro – lets you rearrange the pages (move, rotate, add, delete), search inside documents, and offers features like smart file naming and more.

Download:

• Scanbot Scanner App Free
• Scanbot Pro App $6.99

3. Genius Scan

Sheet music scanning app Genius Scan The last app on our list is Genius Scan. This free app offers users a good scan quality (although it lacks the grayscale filter), with fast processing and rearrangement features. The full version of the app – Genius Scan – allows users to print and export to a cloud service. Download:

• Genious Scan App Free
• Genious Scan+ $7.99

App Features Comparison Table

Final Tips

Before you start scanning, here are four tips that will help you get the most out of your scan with your smartphone:

• Hold the device as straight and as close as possible to the original document.
• Don’t forget to use flash if there is not enough light in the room.
• Place the sheet music on a flat, dark surface.
• Check both landscape and portrait modes and compare best results.