Scan Documents with Microsoft Lens

Introduction to scanning documents with Microsoft Lens

Microsoft Office Lens is an app that enabled users to take photos of whiteboards, business cards, and other documents. Its scan feature can be used in place of a more powerful scanner and provides an impressive Optical Character Recognition Function.

Optical Character Recognition (OCR) identifies and tags elements in the text making it easier to create an accessible PDF document.

The resources on this page consist of a video tutorial and text instructions for scanning documents with Microsoft Lens

Step by Step Instructions for Scanning Documents with Microsoft Lens

1. Download Office Lens to your phone or tablet.
   1. Office Lens is available on Android, Apple, and Windows devices.
2. Open Office Lens and permit it access to your photos and camera.
3. Select the appropriate material that is being scanned on the bottom of the app, i.e. Document, Whiteboard,  etc.
4. Line up the document on the screen, and wait for an orange box to appear around the intended object.
5. Press the White button on the bottom of the screen to take a picture.
6. Office Lens will present a brightened more contrasted version of the image and two buttons on the bottom; a check icon and another camera icon.
   1. Click the camera icon to take additional pictures to be added to the same file. This is recommended for book chapters and PDFs
   2. Click the check to complete the image capture.
7. Select which file format in which to export the images.
   1. The recommended method is select PDF and click save.
   2. Additional file types can be used once signed into Office Lens.
8. After saving the PDF, Office Lens will take you to a location named My Files. Press and hold on the file you mean to send.
9. Press the share icon on the top left to share the file.