Adobe Scan vs Chartra
I make one of these. Adobe Scan is genuinely good and free, so the honest version of this starts with why you might not need mine at all.
Where Adobe Scan wins
- It is free. Not trial-free. Free.
- The OCR is excellent. Adobe has been doing document recognition for decades, and it shows — especially on difficult scans and unusual layouts.
- It fits the Adobe ecosystem. If you already live in Acrobat, files land exactly where you expect them.
- Business cards and forms. Specialised modes, and they work well.
- It is proven. An enormous install base, years of refinement behind it.
If you want a free scanner with strong text recognition and you do not mind an Adobe account, that is a complete answer. You can stop reading here.
What free actually costs
Adobe Scan needs an Adobe account, and processing happens in Adobe Document Cloud — your documents get uploaded. That is not a scandal; it is largely how the OCR gets that good. But it is worth saying plainly, because the documents people actually scan are payslips, medical letters, tax forms and contracts.
And some export features sit behind an Acrobat subscription, so “free” depends on which part you actually need.
Where Chartra wins
- Nothing is uploaded. No account, no cloud, no server. Scanning, reading the text and exporting all happen right there on the phone.
- Redaction that actually removes text. This is the real difference, and it is the part I care about most. Chartra’s Hide burns the region into the page so the words underneath are actually gone — not covered by a rectangle anyone can nudge aside or search behind, like a bad magic trick.
- Signing without a service. Draw it once, Chartra remembers it, you place it. No envelope, no account, no email round trip.
- Word export is real text. Editable paragraphs, not page images in a .docx wrapper.
Side by side
| Adobe Scan | Chartra | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Paid, 3 docs/day free |
| Account required | Yes | No |
| Documents uploaded | Yes | No |
| OCR quality | Excellent | Good |
| True redaction | No | Yes |
| Signing | Via Acrobat | Built in |
| Works offline | No | Yes |
| Track record | Years | New |
Which to pick
Adobe Scan for volume scanning of ordinary documents, when cost matters more than where the file ends up, or when the OCR simply has to be the best you can get.
Chartra when the document is the kind you would not email to a stranger — an account number on it, a medical detail, a salary, an address — or when you need something actually removed rather than covered.
Whichever one you use, verify a redaction before you send anything: open the exported file and search for the text you hid. If it turns up, it is still there.
Chartra — Scan, sign and redact documents. See what it does →