Gaia uses advanced optical character recognition (OCR) and artificial intelligence (AI) to read your scanned documents and accurately extract information. Our system performs reliably in everyday conditions and is remarkably resilient even in challenging scenarios, such as faint handwriting or slightly wrinkled pages. This guide will help you optimize your form submissions to ensure the highest accuracy and best results from the scanner.
Print and writing tips
Use a black or dark blue ballpoint or gel pen.
Avoid pencil, thin, or light-colored pens — they often do not scan well.
Do not use red ink, highlighters, or markers.
Write Clearly in All Capital Letters
Lowercase and cursive work well. All caps work best.
Avoid decorative handwriting, like overly slanted text.
Make sure your letters and numbers are not touching each other.
Add a flag and a base to the number 1
Some people write 1 as a simple vertical stroke, but adding the flag and the base helps the scanner not confuse it with (i, l, I, 7) or the borders of the input cells.
The flag is the small horizontal or angled stroke at the top left.
The base is the horizontal stroke at the base of the "1".
One line per cell
Line breaks can be read, but it's best to fit long numbers in one line.
Reducing the size of the text is better than a line break.
Scanning Quality
Good lighting: Bright, no shadows, top down (not at an angle).
Scan in portrait
When the camera app opens, rotate it into portrait mode.
You can verify that you're in landscape mode by:
Checking if certain UI elements have rotated. On iPhones and Samsung devices, this will be the zoom indicator text. Other devices will have similar interface cues.
Check that the preview image is in landscape (more wide than tall).
⚠️ Simply rotating the phone sideways doesn't always mean you're in portrait mode.
⚠️ We rotate portrait photos counterclockwise automatically.
