Today Microsoft has updated their Office Lens app for Windows 10, making it truly universal, with phone, tablet and HoloLens support. The app allows users take, crop and re-use pictures, for use in OneNote, Word, and PowerPoint.
Once content is captured, it gets saved to OneDrive in a searchable index via Microsoft's Optical Character Recognition. This means you can look for words or equations within your images – especially useful if you can't remember file names.
Office 365 and OneDrive for Business Support
Furthermore, the latest update lets you save scans to business and school OneDrive accounts. The content is then synced to Office 365, complete with its security and sharing features.
Unfortunately, it appears that users are having problems with the app. For myself and other users, starting it up simply results in instant crashes. However, the issue only seems to affect some devices.
At the time of writing this, the app has already had two one-star ratings due to the bug. It's not yet clear if Microsoft has fixed the issue in this build.
Office Lens Features
The Office Lens app for Windows 10 PCs first appeared at the end of last month, but this marks an official acknowledgment, as well Office 365 and OneDrive for business support.
In case you missed our previous coverage, here's a rundown of the UWP features:
- “Whiteboard mode. Office Lens trims and cleans up glare and shadows.
- Document mode. Office Lens trims and colors images perfectly.
- The scanned picture can be saved to your choice of OneNote or OneDrive, or locally on the device.
- Business Card mode can extract contact information and save it into your address book and OneNote. This feature works best with business cards in English, German, Spanish and Simplified Chinese.
- Choose to convert images to PDF (.pdf), Word (.docx), or PowerPoint (.pptx) files that are automatically saved to OneDrive.”
You can download the app for yourself from the Windows Store, and can read the official announcement on the Office blog.
