Professional Phone Applications: Office Lens

As a student, there are several helpful applications for a student to download. There is Quizlet's with flash cards to study on your way to that difficult mid term, and PowerPoint that enables the user to view the presentation or even cast a presentation from their phone. After a previous blog post, I received a question about how I use office lens for my classes. This post is a response to that inquiry.  

Office lens takes pictures and creates or inserts the photo into word documents, PDF files, OneNote, Word, PowerPoint or allows you to share the photo with Outlook, mail, an immersive reader and more with various levels of success. Office lens is made to be used in conjunction with the office suite. This application boasts of several fun features, and different modes for taking pictures of information for these features:Whiteboard, Document, Business card, and Photo.You can view your files by tapping the three dots on the top right corner.

As a student, I use document mode the most. This mode work best when one takes pictures of already typed documents that one needs a digital copy. For example, a professor provides a syllabi or study guide only in print form. Office lens allows the user to take and convert a picture of that typed document and make it a Word document or PDF. If converting a study guide into a word document,  the user can quickly and easily begin filling it out. The picture of the the document is at the bottom of the transcribed document if there are any needed changes. The second photo is a screen capture of the original document for comparison.

If a student makes their syllabi a PDF file and saves it in one note, then they do not need to worry about keeping up with the print version and can check it on their phone using Acrobat. The first is a screenshot of the original document, and the second a screenshot of the PDF from Office lens.

 When I work on a project or research paper, I often use a whiteboard to brainstorm. When I'm done, I do not always have time to copy everything down and getting a good picture with no glare is difficult. For me it is convenient to use whiteboard mode that automatically removes glare and corps the edges by detecting the edges of the board. I add this to my photo library to email it to my team mates. A user can also convert it to a PDF or Word document. However, in my personal experience, the program does not convert hand writing to type with an acceptable level of accuracy. The first picture is just from my phone and the second is from the Office lens.

Finally, there is the business card mode. I am a marketing major, and in the business world I receive a good number of business cards. I am not good at keeping track of all the squares of paper, and I dislike having more than a certain number of things in my wallet. This function helps me cut down on the clutter. At the end off the day, I will take out any business cards I received and take a picture of them. The application will automatically crop the photo and I can choose where to save the image. If a contacts list is synced to OneNote, the system can enter the information found on the business card directly to your contacts lists.

Product web pages:
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/microsoft-office-lens-pdf-scan/id975925059?mt=8
https://www.pcmag.com/review/334822/microsoft-office-lens-for-android