Last fall, Box debuted its Capture app to let iPhone users upload photos directly to the cloud, and on Thursday the company added the most frequently requested feature ever since: document scanning.
Previously, Box users had to manually scan and email attached documents to share them with other people. Now, users of Box Capture can scan a document with their iPhone's camera and then share and collaborate on it just as they would with any other document on Box.
Users begin by selecting "scan mode" in Box Capture; the app will automatically detect a document and scan its text, identifying the document's edges and applying cropping, contrast and deskewing. Users can then manually crop, rotate and re-size the document or adjust shading as needed before saving it as a PDF file for sharing and collaboration via the cloud.
Particularly important for businesses: Photos, videos, audio recordings, and scanned documents captured with the app are saved directly to Box in the cloud without going through the user's personal camera roll, thereby helping to keep data secure.
That feature could help pave the way for the tool's use by medical professionals who need secure document storage, for example. Other possible uses include scanning receipts to an "expenses" folder or capturing sales documents while on the road.
