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This article was published on March 17, 2014

Office Lens lets you scan documents and whiteboards with your Windows Phone directly into OneNote


Office Lens lets you scan documents and whiteboards with your Windows Phone directly into OneNote
Emil Protalinski
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Emil Protalinski

Emil was a reporter for The Next Web between 2012 and 2014. Over the years, he has covered the tech industry for multiple publications, incl Emil was a reporter for The Next Web between 2012 and 2014. Over the years, he has covered the tech industry for multiple publications, including Ars Technica, Neowin, TechSpot, ZDNet, and CNET. Stay in touch via Facebook, Twitter, and Google+.

As part of the slew of OneNote announcements, Microsoft today also launched Office Lens for Windows Phone, which essentially puts a portable scanner in your pocket that sends everything you take a picture of directly to OneNote. You can download the new app now directly from the Windows Phone Store.

office_lens_windows_phone

To get a better idea of how it works, Microsoft lists a few example scenarios:

  • Capture pictures of whiteboards and share your meeting notes with co-workers.
  • Make digital copies of your printed documents, business cards or posters. The text will be automatically recognized (using OCR) so you can search and edit it.
  • Take pictures of menus, shopping lists, or children’s sketches so you never have to worry about forgetting or misplacing them.

When you scan something with Office Lens, the app will make it more readable by trimming and enhancing the photo. Once your image is scanned into OneNote, it will sync across all your devices courtesy of OneDrive. If something you scanned has printed text, OneNote for Windows can use OCR to let you search for words, edit the text, or copy and paste it.

Image Credit: Robert Scoble

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