Abstract: A system and method for saving handwriting in a scanned image as an annotation is disclosed. Automatic annotation logic recognizes the presence of handwriting in a scanned image and saves the handwriting as an annotation. Alternatively, a user of the scanner may identify the handwriting to be saved as an annotation or the automatic annotation logic may identify a notation including handwriting on the scanned page. Optionally, further processing may be applied to remove the appearance of the notation and/or the handwriting from the preview scan feature or from the document generated from the scanned image. Once saved as an annotation in the saved document, the handwriting may be maintained as not visible in the document or may be made visible by the user of the scanner.