How to use Microsoft Lens: Beginners guide

Microsoft Lens is a great tool available for both iOS and Android users to capture information from documents, scans, whiteboards, business cards, receipts, menus, signs, or anything else that contains text that you don’t want to type manually. Using Microsoft Lens effectively makes your tasks easier and saves time. In this guide, we show you how to use Microsoft Lens.

Features of Microsoft Lens

• Scan Images: Microsoft Lens is a great capturing tool that can capture and scan images. When you scan an image with Microsoft Lens it gets rid of shadows and odd camera angles and gives you an eye-appealing scanned image that you can save and share.
• Scan Whiteboards: It would be a tough task to type the text written on the whiteboard on your device and it takes a considerable amount of time, With Microsoft Lens, you can scan whiteboards easily and convert the text written on it into type text. You can use the text generated elsewhere or save and share it with someone.
• Edit Documents: If you have already scanned PDF documents on your device, and you need to edit them, you don’t need to upload them to a third-party website and get your work done. You can use Microsoft Lens to edit your existing PDFs. You can add additional images to PDF, edit the existing images, or reorder the pages in the PDF with Microsoft Lens.
• Intelligent Actions: Microsoft Lens has a feature called Actions. You can use it to extract text from an image. Microsoft Lens supports 30 languages for extracting text from an image. Currently, text extraction from handwritten notes is limited to English only. Not only text, but you can also extract tables from the images. Microsoft Lens will retain the table and its data as it is and the time you take to organize is saved with this. Microsoft Lens supports 21 languages for extracting a printed table from an image, currently.
• Immersive Reader: You can use Microsoft Lens to read text from an image. When you scan a document or click a photo on Microsoft Lens, you will see the immersive reader feature. You can click the Play button to make Lens read out the text.
• Save Business Cards as Contact: One of the great features of Microsoft Lens is its ability to scan documents. If you scan a business card on Microsoft Lens, you can save the extracted text from the business card as a contact on your phone.
• Scan QR code: Microsoft Lens has the ability to scan QR codes and open the links or show the information stored through a QR code you scan.

How to use Microsoft Lens

Microsoft Lens is available to download on both Google Play Store and App Store. You can use Microsoft Lens in the following ways.

1. How to capture or import something using Microsoft Lens
2. How to share a captured image, document, or text in Microsoft Lens
3. How to edit previously scanned PDFs in Microsoft Lens
4. How to extract a table from an image on Microsoft Lens
5. How to read the text in Immersive Reader on Microsoft Lens
6. How to save contact information from a Business card on Microsoft Lens
7. How to scan a QR code on Microsoft Lens

Let’s get into the details of each process.

1] How to capture or import something using Microsoft Lens

After installing Microsoft Lens on your device, open it. On the opening screen, you can choose a capture mode by swiping left or right at the bottom of the screen to select any of the following options.

Whiteboard: This mode is best used for capturing handwritten notes and sketches on a dry-erase board or a similar surface. Microsoft Lens will adjust your images so that the background isn’t too bright and the ink strokes are easier to see.

Document: This mode is optimized for small words that are written or typed on a page or on a note. It’s also great for things like forms, receipts, posters, flyers, or restaurant menus.

Actions: This mode is a collection of the following available sub-modes:

• Text can be used to extract text from your image, which you can copy or share.
• Table can be used to extract a printed table from your image which you can copy and share
• Read can be used to read out loud any text in your image in the Immersive Reader.
• Contact can be used to extract information from a business card and save it as a Contact on your device.
• QR Code can be used to scan a QR code to view, copy, and share the information that the code displays.

Business Card: This mode captures contact information from a business card and saves it to the Contacts app on your Android device, as well as to Microsoft OneNote. This feature currently works best with business cards in English, German, Spanish, or Simplified Chinese.

Photo: This mode is best used for capturing photographs and images containing scenery or people.

You can choose any one of these options and click on the capture button to take a picture of the object or document. If you do not want to capture an image, instead you want to import an existing capture or image from your phone, tap on the Picture button beside the Capture button at the bottom of the screen, Give Files and Gallery permissions to Microsoft Lens so that it can import the already captured image or document into it. Browse and select the image.

You can capture or import up to 100 images at a time on Microsoft Lens. If you capture, you can review each image after you take it, or review and edit them later.

Once you have captured or imported an image, you can edit them easily with the options you see after the capture. You can click Add and capture more images, or apply a filter to the captured image using the Filters button. You can crop, rotate, or delete them using the options you see there. If you want to highlight or mark something on the capture, you can use the Ink button. If you want to convert the captured image to text you can use the text button. If you want to reorder the taken pictures, you can use Reorder button.

After you are done with editing, you can tap on Done. Then, click on Save to see various options to save.

2] How to share a captured image, document, or text in Microsoft Lens

You will see options to save to OneDrive while you are saving a capture on Microsoft Lens. You can share the link to the capture you have saved in OneDrive. If you have saved the file locally, you can share the capture normally using the messaging apps or any other way of your choice.

3] How to edit previously scanned PDFs in Microsoft Lens

You can import documents on Microsoft Lens using the three-dot button at the top of the screen. Once you have imported the document, you can see options to Edit, Share, or Delete. Choose Edit to start editing the document by adding more captures or images to it, or delete some pages, or even reorganizing the pages as you like.

4] How to extract a table from an image on Microsoft Lens

To extract a table from an image, you need to select the Table mode while you capture the image on a Microsoft lens. After selecting the Table mode, click on the Capture button. You can edit the table as you like and the text or data in it. You can use the copy button to copy the table and paste it on a document or the Share button to share it with someone.

5] How to read the text in Immersive Reader on Microsoft Lens

To read text from an image, select the Read mode, point the camera at the text you want to read, and then tap the round Capture button.

Next, position the text by adjusting the borders of the image and tap Continue on the lower right corner of the screen. If you want to retake the image, tap Retake in the lower right corner of the screen.

When you tap Continue, Microsoft Lens displays the text in the image in the Immersive Reader. You can tap the Play button to listen to the text spoken out loud. You can change the text size, spacing, font, and some other settings by tapping the three-dot button at the top right of the screen.

6] How to save contact information from a Business card on Microsoft Lens

It is now easy to scan a business card and save it as a contact on your phone. To scan a business card and save it as a Contact on your phone, select the Contact mode, point the camera at the business card, and then tap the round Capture button.

Next, position the business card by adjusting the borders of the image, and then tap Continue in the lower right corner of the screen. If you want to retake the image, tap Retake in the lower right corner of the screen.

When you tap Continue, Microsoft Lens displays the contact information extracted from the business card and you can save it to your Contacts on your device. It is that simple.

7] How to scan a QR code on Microsoft Lens

To scan a QR code on Microsoft Lens, you need to select the QR Code mode. Then point the camera at the QR code you want to scan. Microsoft Lens will automatically open the link or show information about the QR code. You can see options to Copy or Share the QR code information.

Read: List of best Android apps from Microsoft

This is how you can use Microsoft Lens on your Android or iOS phone to carry out various tasks.

Is the Microsoft Lens app free?

Yes, it is a free-to-use app from Microsoft. It is available for both Android and iOS mobiles. With the help of this app, you can scan receipts, business cards, notes, photos, and other documents.

How do I scan a document with Microsoft Lens?

To scan a document with Microsoft Lens, you can choose the Document mode at the bottom of the screen and click on the round Capture button. It will scan the current page, you pointed the camera at. You can crop the border or adjust its looks or retake it using the Retaka option. If you have multiple pages to scan, you need to repeat these steps for the whole document.

Can Microsoft Lens convert handwriting to text?

Yes, Microsoft Lens can convert handwriting to text. To use that, you need to first capture the image of your handwriting on Microsft Lens and select the Text option in the edit options you see after the capture. It will convert the handwriting into text which you can Copy and Share.

Related read: How Microsoft makes money from Android.

Does Microsoft Lens have an inbuilt OCR feature?

Yes, Microsoft Lens comes with the OCR feature. If you want OCR or Optical Character Recognition to be applied to your captured image, select the Word option. Microsoft Lens will create a Word file in your OneDrive account.