Microsoft Office Lens: A Powerful Tool for Capturing and Organizing Information

If you often have to jot down notes and worry about misplacing or missing information, Microsoft Office Lens is here to help.

What is Microsoft Office Lens and how to use it?

How can I use Microsoft Office Lens?

1. You can download & install Microsoft Lens: PDF Scanner for your iOS or Android device like you install other apps.
2. Once done, launch Office Lens.
3. Select a mode you want to capture; you will get four options:
   • Photo: Take pictures of people or scenery 
   • Document: Using this will help you grab small words and details on the page. You capture an image of posters, restaurant menus, & fliers
   • Whiteboard: Good mode for capturing notes from blackboards and sketches
   • Business Card: Extract contact information from the business card and save it to your phone’s contacts app or in OneNote
4. Once you select the mode, point the camera towards the item you want to capture, then make sure the frame lines up with the items.
5. Tap the Camera button to click a picture.
6. If you are not satisfied with the picture, you can tap on Trash, or if you want to click more images, you can tap Take More.

How can I review and edit pictures in Microsoft Office Lens?

1. Once you have captured an image, you can tap on the Crop icon to trim the unwanted part of the image.
2. You can also add a caption to the image taken, which will appear as ALT Text in OneNote and as the file title in OneDrive.
3. After getting the file, tap the Save button from the bottom.
4. You will be given the choice to save the images to OneDrive, Word, OneNote, or PowerPoint or as PDF.
5. You can choose to save them in your phone’s photo gallery.

Here is the list of languages supported by Microsoft Office Lens when saved via different apps:

What is Microsoft Office Lens?

Office Lens is an excellent way to capture notes & information from menus, whiteboards, signs, handwritten memos, and even sketches, equations, drawings, and images without text.

It can:

• Get rid of shadows and odd angles to make the text readable
• Upload documents and whiteboard images to PowerPoint, Word, OneDrive, or OneNote
• Save the doc as a PDF
• Send the document in an email
• Recognize the text, handwritten or printed, and the document layout
• Transform handwritten lines and strokes into PowerPoint drawing objects that you can recolor, move, resize, and edit
• Extract the text information.

FAQs

To conclude, Office Lens by Microsoft is a valuable tool for Android and iOS devices. You can download & install them to capture essential details of a meeting that you took and transform the handwritten notes into text, which is editable in Word, PowerPoint, and more.

If you want to try other Office tools, be sure to check our guide on how to download Microsoft Office.

If you have any questions or suggestions about Microsoft Office Lens, please mention them in the comments section below.