Scan document: create PDF

[boyddensmore]

Steps to reproduce

1. Update to Android Nextcloud app, version 3.20.0
2. Navigate to destination folder, tap +, choose scan document from camera
3. Take picture of document, follow prompts to finish
4. Nextcloud file list updates, new file appears in JPG format

Expected behaviour

• Tell us what should happen
• File should upload in PDF format

Actual behaviour

• Tell us what happens
• File uploads in JPG format

Can you reproduce this problem on https://try.nextcloud.com?

• Please create a test demo account and see if this still happens there.
• If yes, please open up a bug report
• If not, please verify server setup and ask for help on forum

Environment data

Android version: 10

Device model: Samsung Galaxy S9

Stock or customized system: Stock

Nextcloud app version: 3.20.0

Nextcloud server version: 23.0.3

Reverse proxy:

Logs

Web server error log

Insert your webserver log here

Nextcloud log (data/nextcloud.log)

Insert your Nextcloud log here

NOTE: Be super sure to remove sensitive data like passwords, note that everybody can look here! You can use the Issue Template application to prefill some of the required information: https://apps.nextcloud.com/apps/issuetemplate

[AlvaroBrey]

This is not a bug, JPEG is how it works right now.

[boyddensmore]

Ah, understood. I saw lots of references to PDF in the comments etc and I thought it was unlikely to get this far if it wasn't working as designed but figured I'd raise it anyway. Thanks for converting to an enhancement 🙂

[lbdroid]

To add to the enhancement, also multi-page with an option to reorder and remove pages between scanning and finalizing.

[jwsp1]

This is not a bug, JPEG is how it works right now.

So what's "built-in document scanner" in the 3.20.changelog?

[g-work]

The new document scanner isn't included in the fdroid build. See https://github.com/nextcloud/android/issues/10195

[svenb1234]

This is not a bug, JPEG is how it works right now.

So what's "built-in document scanner" in the 3.20.changelog?

Although everybody seems to follow the same thought that a document scanner would generate PDF, as this is the standard portable Document file format, strictly speaking, a picture is also a document.

I do agree though that creating PDFs would be the common user expectation when reading "document scanner". Pictures are created by a camera, not a document scanner.

[lbdroid]

I actually prefer to look at the current implementation as a first step towards the ultimate goal. Right now it takes a picture, and is able to find the outline of a paper document, and manipulate the image into a flat rectangle without including part of your table and your dog's butt.

Next steps are to drop the number of colors (1-bit black and white is good for scanning typical documents) for reduced file size, add a bunch more scans to the project (i.e., multiple pages), and put those images together into a single PDF file. I actually believe that this can be done very easily using https://developer.android.com/reference/android/graphics/pdf/PdfDocument

[ayushbhanu]

@boyddensmore is this enhancement still open?

[RonnyPfannschmidt]

it would be nice if the app could scan as pdf as well, ocr isnt needed but a number of document uploads need a pdf file extension for attachments needing a manual conversion to pf,same goes for multi page documents

my understanding is that pdf files can just bundle a number of jpegs

[svenb1234]

Thanks a lot!