Humans can only work so many hours in one day, therefore using your time wisely to increase productivity is the most important. You can work hard or you can work smarter. Big companies are putting so much focus on how to have their employees work smarter, because working hard mantra is getting old. With the implementation of new technologies, Humans can work smart. In this article, we will provide detailed Microsoft Office Lens Review and learn on how to increase your productivity with using Microsoft Office Lens.
Traditionally, humans are used to scanning the documents from the scanner but new technologies enable users to scan documents right from their android or iOS devices. Documents scanned from phones are slightly better in resolution and much easier to share, compared to scanning from printers. There are many different mobile application that offers such a features, but to us Microsoft Office Lens stands out from the bunch. Office Lens application is available for both iOS and Android devices.
Also Check out our post: How to make money selling photos in 2021.
What is Microsoft Office Lens?
Microsoft Office Lens is an application for iOS and Android devices that capture notes from paper documents, whiteboards, handwritten memos, menus and signs. People often refer to Microsoft Office Lens applications as just ‘Office Lens’. Having an Office Lens application in your phone is like having a tiny scanner in your pocket. With the help of Office Lens, you can take photos with much better resolution and it can be easily converted into pdfs, share images via email or store it in online storage. Office Lens applications constantly come up as Highly rated productivity apps on iOS app Store and Android Play Store.
Why use it?
Microsoft Office Lens is a free application that increases your day-to-day productivity and saves you time from scanning documents traditionally. When using Office Lens, application gets rid of any glares, shadows and odd angles, so it is much easier to read. To use anything scanned from traditional printers will require extra steps to use them in any Microsoft Office Application, whereas notes or information captured from Office Lens is readily available to use in Word, PowerPoint, OneNote and OneDrive. Office Lens scanned notes can easily be converted into PDFs or send them in email.
Resolution of scanned documents from Office Lens is much better. Below image compares printer scanned photo and Office Lens scanned photo.
How to Use the Application?
Application is available to download for both iOS and Android Devices. Below we will take a look at how Android Devices performs, steps are very similar for iOS devices as well.
Choose your Mode
Before you take a picture, make sure you’re on the right mode. You can pick from Whiteboard, Document, Business Card and Photo. Below we have broken down what each mode means. You can either choose to have flash on or off, you can also change the resolution to higher or lower based on your needs.
- Photo: Photo mode is good for any generic photo such as taking picture of someone or taking scenic views.
- Document: Mode is great for taking photo of reports, receipts or posters. Taking photos from document mode is almost as good as scanning from a printer.
- Whiteboard: This mode is reserved for capturing meeting notes from a whiteboard.
- Business Card: This mode will help you extract information from Business Cards in English, German, Spanish and Simplified Chinese. It will extract the information from Business and, if preferred, it can save directly into phone’s contacts and Microsoft OneNote.
Taking a Photo
Before you take a photo, choose desired mode. Once capture the image, Office Lens will show you the frame around a document or receipt. Do your best to match the frame for the object. Once you have taken a photo, Office Lens will give you a chance to adjust the frame if desired. Below is the example of what the frame looks like.
You can either adjust the frame own your own or go with what Office Lens suggested. You can continue to take additional photos of the document, or you can click on the preview (Orange Icon). After that Office Lens gives you more options to either filter, rotate, delete, write on it or add text to the photo.
After applying the desired filter, you can click done. Next screen brings you the best part about Office Lens; you can save the photo to either Galley, PDF, OneNote, OneDrive, Microsoft Word or Microsoft PowerPoint. On contrast, Office Lens doesn’t import the photo into existing Word or PowerPoint documents, but it saves as with Word or PowerPoint files.
Sharing Files as an Email
Office Lens also makes it easier to share a file as an email. You can follow below 3 easy steps to share a file as an email.
- Step 1: From home, click on 3 dots from top-right of the screen and select My Files.
- Step 2: From My Files, click on 3 dots from the document you would want and click on Share.
- Step 3: Once clicked on Share, you will see all applicable applicable you can share the document. Select your desired email application and share the document.
