Scanning Text#
On iPhone and iPad, FoldNotes can read printed text through the camera and drop it straight into your note as editable Markdown — no typing, no photo to crop later. Point the camera at a page, a whiteboard, a receipt, or a business card, tap the words you want, and they appear at your cursor.
Note
Scanning Text is an iOS / iPadOS feature, available on devices that support live text recognition. It does not appear on macOS or on older devices without the capability.
How to scan#
- Tap the image button (the picture icon) in the keyboard toolbar.
- In the Add Image chooser, tap Scan Text.
- The camera opens with live recognition. Point it at the text — FoldNotes highlights the words it can read.
- Tap a highlighted block to capture it. Tap it again to remove it. The button shows how many blocks you've captured.
- Tap Insert when you're done. The captured text is inserted at your cursor, each block on its own line.
Tap Cancel at any time to back out without inserting anything.
Tip
Hold steady and fill the frame with the text for the cleanest read. You can capture several blocks across the page before inserting — they go in in the order you tapped them.
Camera permission#
The first time you scan, iOS asks for camera access. This prompt comes from the system — tap Allow to continue. You can change this later in Settings → FoldNotes → Camera. If access is off, scanning shows a brief notice and exits cleanly rather than freezing on a black screen.
What scanned text becomes#
Scanned text is treated exactly like text you typed yourself. It's inserted through the normal editing path as plain Markdown characters at the cursor — nothing more.
This matters for how FoldNotes keeps your notes safe and portable:
- It never touches front matter. Scanning can't alter the hidden
fn-keys that track folding, tasks, and identity. (See Front Matter.) - It writes no files of its own. Unlike adding a photo, scanning text doesn't create anything in
.attachments/— there's just new text in your note. - It's fully editable and undoable. Recognition isn't perfect, so review what lands and fix any misreads as you would any typo. A single Undo removes the whole insertion.
Because the result is ordinary Markdown, a scanned paragraph is indistinguishable from one you wrote by hand — it folds, links, tags, and exports the same way.
Scanning vs. taking a photo#
Both start from the camera, but they do different jobs:
| Scan Text | Take Photo | |
|---|---|---|
| Result | Editable Markdown text | An image embedded as  |
Stored in .attachments/? |
No | Yes |
| Best for | Capturing words to keep and edit | Keeping the picture itself |
If you want the image and its text, take the photo first, then scan the same page separately.