Plenty of portals will not take the crisp PDF a word processor produced; they ask for a “scanned copy”, and a genuinely clean file looks wrong to whoever checks it. The look is not one filter but a stack of small defects applied in the order a real machine makes them: a touch of optical blur, the colour dropped, a contrast curve, half-height fax lines, sensor grain, the photocopier's hard black-and-white cut, the paper tone, a shadow along the edge where the lid never quite closed, then a few specks of dust. Each page is tilted by its own small angle, and every random choice comes from one seed — so the preview matches the file page for page, and a shuffle button gives a fresh set of accidents.
Features
Three presets to start from: clean office scan, photocopy, and old fax
A different tilt per page, up to 3 degrees, random but repeatable
White, off-white or warm paper, in greyscale or with the colour kept
Grain, optical blur, contrast and brightness on their own sliders
Optional edge shadow, dust specks, hard black-and-white cut and half-resolution fax lines
First-page preview that matches the saved file, and a shuffle for a new set of defects
100, 150 or 200 dpi, and up to 100 pages in one run
How to use the Make PDF Look Scanned
Drop the PDF in and watch its first page in the preview
Pick a preset, then move any slider you like
Shuffle until the tilt, grain and dust look convincing
signed-agreement-scanned.pdf — 6 hard black-and-white pages, each tilted a little differently, 1.9 MB
The text is no longer selectable: every page has become a picture.
Common errors & troubleshooting
I can no longer select or search the text. — That is exactly what a scan is — each page is now an image. Run the result through PDF OCR to put a searchable text layer back underneath the pictures.
The file is far larger than the original. — A page of text is a few kilobytes of drawing instructions; a picture of that same page is hundreds. Drop to 100 dpi, or run the result through Compress PDF.
Nothing is tilted. — The tilt slider is at zero, so no page is rotated. Raise it and each page takes its own angle within that limit.
A stamp in the very corner of the page lost a sliver. — Tilting turns the content inside the same page box, so anything right against a corner can pass outside it. Lower the tilt, or add a margin to the page before applying the effect.
Frequently asked questions
Why would anyone want a clean PDF to look scanned?
Because some submission portals and offices only accept a “scanned copy” of a signed document, and reject a file that is obviously born digital. It is also used for mock-ups, for design comps, and for building test material for document pipelines.
Is the text still selectable after the effect is applied?
No, and that is deliberate — a real scan has no text in it. Each page is rasterised and placed as one image, so copy, search and screen readers all see a picture. Add a text layer back with PDF OCR when it needs to be searchable.
Does the tilt change the page size?
No. Each page keeps its original dimensions; the content is turned inside that box and the corners the turn uncovers are filled with paper, the way a sheet lying crooked on a scanner glass looks.
Why does each page get a different angle?
Because a stack fed through a scanner never lands twice the same way, and an identical tilt on every page is the giveaway. Angles, grain and dust are drawn from one seed, so they differ page to page yet stay the same between the preview and the file.
What is the difference between the photocopy and the fax preset?
Both cut the page to hard black and white. The photocopy keeps full resolution and adds toner speckle, dust and an edge shadow; the fax halves the vertical resolution, coarsens the grain and sits it on warm paper, so lines come out chunkier.
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