Best Portable Document And Receipt Scanners in 2022

By Cale Hunt
published

Not all scanners have to stay confined to your office.

There is nothing worse than a wallet or car console full of receipts or a filing cabinet that's bursting with unsorted documents. If you find yourself on the road a lot, you're probably looking for a scanner that can come with you, whether it's in your luggage or right in your laptop bag. In any case, I've rounded up some of the best portable scanners and apps you can get right now.

Office Lens

Why you can trust Windows Central Our expert reviewers spend hours testing and comparing products and services so you can choose the best for you. Find out more about how we test.

When it comes to portable scanning, adding a function to a product you already carry around every day is a no-brainer. In this case, it's as easy as downloading the Office Lens app. It's completely free, and it has a 4.5-star rating on the Microsoft Store with more than 15,000 reviews.

All you have to do is snap a picture of a document, crop out the background, trim the edges, and choose where to save the file. With upload options straight to OneDrive, OneNote, and Dropbox, Office Lens makes scanning about as easy as possible. It's also available for iOS and Android.

CamScanner

As suggested by more than a few of our readers, CamScanner is an alternative to Office Lens that's available for Windows 10 Mobile, Android, and iOS. It's completely free and has plenty of useful features, including auto-crop, PDF conversion, keyword search and custom tags, compatibility with OneDrive and OneNote, and document syncing.

Like Office Lens, all you have to do is point and shoot with your camera and CamScanner will take care of the rest.

Epson ES-300W

If you're looking for a physical scanner that you can take with you on the road, the Epson ES-300W (about $250) (opens in new tab) is a fine choice thanks to Wi-Fi connectivity and several power options, such as battery, USB or AC. The Wirecutter chose this portable scanner as its top overall pick, stating:

In our tests it delivered (along with its sister model, the ES-200) the fastest scans we've seen from a portable unit, with flawless text recognition with fonts as small as 6 points when using the bundled ABBYY software.

There is a 20-page feeder for when you're scanning multiple documents, yet the whole thing folds down to fit in your bag when you're on the go. When scanning, choose to save your files in a number of services, including OneDrive and Dropbox, or convert them into Word, Excel or PDF files.

See at Amazon (opens in new tab)

Canon imageFormula P-215II

Weighing in at about two pounds, this portable scanner from Canon (about $222) (opens in new tab) works well both on your desk and on the road. It has a feeder for scanning multiple documents at once, and it can also handle double-sided scans. In its review, PCMag was so impressed it awarded the device an Editor's Choice, going on to say:

In addition to offering an advantage in size and weight compared with the Kodak model, the P-215II matches the Kodak i940's 20-sheet ADF capacity, its ability to duplex, and its ability to scan thick plastic cards, like embossed ID cards and driver's licenses.

High scanning speeds are achieved whether you're scanning to PDF or to a Word document, but note that this scanner does not have Wi-Fi capabilities. Instead, it connects to your PC via USB, from which it also draws power. If you need a scanner that works well both at home and while traveling, check out the Canon imageFormula P-215II.

See at Amazon (opens in new tab)

Visioneer RoadWarrior X3

Not everyone can afford to pay a couple hundred dollars for a portable scanner, which is why Visioneer created the RoadWarrior X3. It starts at about $32 (opens in new tab), yet despite the budget price, this scanner has impressive speeds and is relatively compact.

The lack of a feeder might be a deal-breaker for some people, but anyone who doesn't plan on scanning a large amount of documents at once should be fine. This scanner connects to your PC with USB, over which it also gets its power. No AC adapter is required. Weighing in at less than a pound, this is a great device for anyone who primarily operates from the road.

See at Amazon (opens in new tab)

Epson ES-200

If the Epson ES-300W mentioned above seemed like a tempting option if not for the price, its little sibling, the ES-200, might be just right for you. No, it doesn't have Wi-Fi capabilities or a battery, but it costs $50 less at about $200 (opens in new tab).

With the ability to save your scans to Dropbox and OneDrive, and convert documents straight into PDF, Word, or Excel files, the ES-200 makes your life easy. Scan speeds are a bit slower when connected solely via USB, but plugging in with the AC adapter seems to fix that problem. If you want a portable scanner that can handle virtually everything and don't see a need for Wi-Fi or a battery, have a look at the Epson ES-200.

See at Amazon (opens in new tab)

Doxie Go SE

There are several different Doxie Go models, but the SE (about $178) (opens in new tab) seems to offer the best combination of price and performance. It can scan color pages at 600 dpi in about eight seconds, and it has a built-in battery that should last through about 400 scans.

If you're not close to a PC, an included SD card will hold up to about 4,000 pages, letting you stay mobile for quite some time. Once you do connect to a PC, sync with your favorite cloud storage service or handle scans with included Doxie software.

See at Amazon (opens in new tab)

More scanners

Need something a bit more permanent? We also rounded up the best affordable scanners and the best photo scanners.

Updated June 25, 2018: I've refreshed this list to ensure you're still getting a collection of the best options when it comes to portable scanning.

Cale Hunt
Cale Hunt
Senior Editor, Laptop Reviews

Cale Hunt is formerly a Senior Editor at Windows Central. He focuses mainly on laptop reviews, news, and accessory coverage. He's been reviewing laptops and accessories full-time since 2016, with hundreds of reviews published for Windows Central. He is an avid PC gamer and multi-platform user, and spends most of his time either tinkering with or writing about tech.

32 Comments
  • Im with the office lense crowd on this one.  I use it daily for my receipts and all my other scanning needs. Also I really like the whiteboard feature.  I use that at work also. 
  • I'll join you on this one, Office Lens is incredibly useful for me.
  • I love Office Lens also, but I find it hangs all the time when using WM10.
    Trying to convert to PDF, or any format for that matter, it usually spins it's wheels for an age before throwing in the towel.
  • Try using camscanner once, you'll realise how incredibly slow office lens is
  • Yes I love the whiteboard feature of office lens it's the best for capturing whiteboard sessions.
  • Office Lens. Even on my Android tablet.
  • Office Lens FTW here too. It works perfectly well for this kind of job. It borders what it needs to scan very, very well and the results are very, very good IMHO.
  • This is weird and confusing, why did you make a list of 4 physical scanners & a scanning application in the same article, apps should be compared with apps, and hardware vs hardware, it's simple!
  • Office Lens is on another level
  • Apples and oranges.
  • They are comparing different "things" that scan documents. There are physical scanners to do that, and also apps. Why not mention both if the result is the same?
    A few years ago, I wanted to scan some sheet musics and started looking at scanners to buy, and ended up looking on the windows app store if an app would do the job and ended up using Lens. Didn't need a professional scanner to do that after all. An article like that back then would have help me a lot. ;)
  • Yeah i guess it depends on "how professional" the task your trying to get done is! For example in my job i use WhatsApp sometimes instead of email, but i can't depend on WhatsApp each time...
  • They are both scanners, basically.
  • Office Lens, works great for everything I need.
  • Office Lens on WM10. Period. It's also built into OneDrive on iOS now.
  • Also, my app Tip Jar: A Tip Calculator creates a virtual tip receipt after calculating a tip. I tell users to screenshot it for a quick save of a receipt after calculating tip instead of scanning and just save the copy for reference. sorry about the plug but I think it's a useful feature for honorable mention.
  • How about Camscanner? I've been using it
    How does it compare to office lens?
  • CS is infant before Office Lens
  • I downloaded office lens
    I've discovered it's still behind cam scanner in functionality
  • Office lens all the way!
  • Office Lens is all I have used since it became available. Awesome.
  • Cam scanner is well designed and reliable. It enhances images really well even at an angle. It offers OCR. Also for just business cards they have Cam card. It is also good to support non-Microsoft native apps and developers.
  • Unfortunately, Office Lens on Android does not support multiple images within a single document. This makes the app far less useful.
  • Yeah that part is a real bummer. Works great, but only does one page documents on Android, and then you need to go on a separate adventure to find a PDF software to put the documents together that isn't ridiculously overpriced, like Adobe Acrobat Pro.
  • Is there a way to get around Office Lens' 10 page limitation?
  • I use office lens several times a week! Works great in conjunction with HP AIO Printer app!
  • Office Lens works brilliantly save for one critical factor. No idea where it hides the files it has created!
  • I agree with you on that problem. It is "always" a headache. In opposition to CamScanner, which creates its CamScanner's folder and put every doc inside.
  • OneDrive/Documents/OfficeLens ?
  • Office lens works great no doubt, but the files created are sometimes large, sometimes I just want to create file in black and white it cannot. Black and white reduces the size of the file.
  • OfficeLens is perfect; Camscanner is s.... Reason: Office Lens saves locally and or in OneDrive, just what you select in setting. Camscanner wants your special registration with your email! Why?
  • Office Lens all the way.