Getting started

Open or create the collection you want the cards to land in.
Tap Scan. The browser asks for camera permission the first time, and that permission is between you and your browser: the video never leaves your device.
Hold the card so the name is readable. It does not need to fill the frame or be square on, and the name can be anywhere in the picture.
Cards go into a queue rather than straight into your collection, so you can look over a stack before committing it.

Scanning a stack quickly

Keep the phone still and move the cards, rather than the other way round. It focuses faster.
Any flat, evenly lit surface beats holding a card up to a window. Glare on a sleeve is the single most common reason a scan fails.
The queue shows what it read, so you can scan a pile and check the whole lot at the end rather than watching each one.

When it gets one wrong

The scanner reads the name correctly about 97.6% of the time, which still means roughly one card in forty needs a hand. Two different things can go wrong, and they are worth telling apart:

The wrong card. Rare, and usually a name it could not read at all. Remove it from the queue with the × on its row and type the name in instead.
The right card, the wrong printing. Much more common, because most cards have been printed many times and the art is not what is being read. The queue marks scanned rows differently from typed ones for exactly this reason: a typed card is the card you meant, a scanned one may be the right card from the wrong set.

You can change the printing without rescanning. Open Review and every queued row has a Printing button beside it. Tap it and the queue is replaced by every printing of that card, newest first, with the set and collector number on each: pick the right one and the row updates in place. The × beside it removes the row outright.

So the order that saves the most time is scan the whole pile first, then open Review and fix the handful that need it, then add them all at once. Nothing is written to your collection until you press Add to Collection, so there is no hurry and nothing to undo.

If the printing does not matter to you, add it and move on.

Cards that need a little help

Sleeved cards. A matte sleeve is usually fine. A glossy one throws the light straight back at the lens, so angle the card slightly rather than turning up the brightness.
Foils. The same problem, more so. Tilt until the rainbow moves off the title bar; the name is the only part being read, so the rest of the card can stay shiny.
Double faced cards. Scan the front. Wizbook files transforming cards under the front face, so a card scanned from its back will not be found even though Wizbook has it.
Cards in another language. Wizbook's card data is English only, so a Japanese printing will not match by name. Add it by its English name and the printing details can be set afterwards.
Old cards with ornate frames. Pre eighth edition type is harder to read than modern type. If a card refuses twice, it is faster to type it than to keep trying.

Where the cards end up

Scanned cards join the same queue typed ones do, so you can review the whole pile before anything is added.
From the queue they can go into your collection, or straight into a deck, a binder or a wishlist, without a round trip through the collection first.
If you have no collection open, Wizbook asks you to make one first rather than quietly holding cards with nowhere to put them.
Nothing is written until you add it, so a queue you abandon costs you nothing.

What you paid for them

A pile from a flea market, a bulk lot or a booster box usually has one price on it rather than a price per card. The moment you have just added them is the only moment Wizbook knows exactly which cards they were, so that is where it asks.

There are two moments to do it. In Review, before you add anything, What you paid takes the total for the queue and holds it: the button turns green with the amount on it, and the price is recorded automatically when you add the cards. Or after you add a batch, the confirmation offers Record what you paid. Give either the total for the lot and it divides it across them, weighted by what each card is worth so the chase rare carries most of the cost, or split evenly if you would rather. Each card gets a purchase recorded against it, and the Paid and ROI columns fill in.

It is entirely optional and asks nothing of you if you ignore it: the offer fades with the confirmation and nothing is recorded. You can always do it later instead, from the Buyer/Seller tool, by selecting the cards and splitting a total across them there.

What leaves your device

The camera feed does not leave your phone.
The current scanner reads the card entirely in your browser and sends no image anywhere at all.
There is an older fallback path, used only when the current scanner is unavailable, which sends the cropped area around the card name to an OCR service and nothing else: not the picture of the card, not the artwork, not anything about you or your collection.
Everything else about the scan happens on your device.

The About page lists every outbound request Wizbook makes, in full.

If you would rather type

The Rapid Card Adder takes names as fast as you can type them, with autocomplete, and drops into the same queue. Scanning and typing are two ways into one place, so you can mix them freely on the same pile.

Scanning cards with your phone