Microsoft Lens - PDF Scanner

Microsoft Corporation

About this app

Microsoft Lens (formerly Microsoft Office Lens) trims, enhances, and makes pictures of whiteboards and documents readable.
You can use Microsoft Lens to convert images to PDF, Word, PowerPoint, and Excel files, digitize printed or handwritten text, and save to OneNote, OneDrive, or your local device. You can even import images that are already on your device using Gallery.

PRODUCTIVITY AT WORK  
• Scan and upload all your notes, receipts, and documents
• Capture whiteboard at end of the meeting to keep those action items on track
• Scan printed text or handwritten meeting notes to edit and share later
• Keep your business networking contacts handy by scanning business cards and saving them to your contact list
• Choose to save as PDF, Image, Word or PowerPoint formats into OneNote, OneDrive, or local device as location

PRODUCTIVITY AT SCHOOL 
• Scan classroom handouts and annotate them in Word and OneNote
• Scan handwritten notes to digitize and edit later (works with English only)
• Take a picture of the whiteboard or blackboard to reference later, even if you're offline
• Keep class notes and your own research organized with the seamless integration with OneNote
 
By installing the app, you agree to these terms and conditions: http://aka.ms/olensandterms.

Ratings and reviews

Great for digitizing documents. I use it all the time for signed documents I need to send. Replaces what faxes we're for. I especially like how I don't need to square up to the document as it somehow accounts for me holding my phone at a angle. I also love how I can create a number of formats such as image, PDF, or even a OneNote page. I then can share a link to the document which allows someone to download the document without even having a Microsoft account. There are so much more. Love it!

Great when it works. But it rarely does as expected. The OCR feature is the main reason I ever open this app. It is completely unpredictable. Some rare occasions it decodes perfectly first time, usually I try about six times to force it to go. Some documents require framing small blocks of text, a few lines at a time. Very cumbersome. Updates have improved stability .Usually an error will happen on saving. That used to be 50/50 chance of crash; but it hasn't happened in a long time. I really don't like the idea of default saving to OneDrive. Saving to the device has gotten easier, but MS clearly wants OneDrive to be the first option.

Among the other apps out there, this one feels stable and cleaner. Lot of options too for exporting the processed image. It earns 5 stars for this. That is until, before writing this, I decided to scan receipts for my recent trip. These were in PDF format, which gets stored to onedrive by default. After about 23 odd scans, the app decided to crash. At which point it will not show me my uploaded history. Are we looking at an app which is stable for few here and there uploads...? Not sure.

What’s new

Bug fixes and performance improvements.