App Spotlight | Microsoft Lens

Microsoft Lens, first released in 2014, is a mobile app that makes it easy to scan documents on a phone. It works by giving you a camera-like interface that highlights pages and documents. You can scan or “photograph” multiple pages and export them as a PDF document. Lens is a great alternative to scanning on printers or with older style standalone scanners and in a real sense is easier for us to use. Lens also provides us with the ability to see the output of our scan in real time!

To get start using lens you first need to head to the App Store, if your on a iPhone or iPad or the Play Store if your on a android device. Once there simply search for Microsoft Lens, you’ll know you’ve found the right app when you see the Microsoft Lens logo and the publisher is listed as Microsoft Corporation.

Do i have to purchase Microsoft Lens?

No! Microsoft Lens is a free app, whilst it wont cost you anything to install it you will need to still be logged in to the app stores and may be required to enter a password or pin to download it.

Once it’s installed scanning documents is very simple. Open the Microsoft Lens, it lets you scan documents one page at a time lining them up with the white A4 indicator square.

Follow along

I’ll do a demonstration showing myself scanning a booking confirmation page. Let’s see if you can follow long with the steps below:

1. Open the App and line up your first page with the A4 square indicators, when you’re happy with it, press the center “capture” button.

2. Once the first scan is done, you will see a preview of it. If your done and its only one page you can click review and edit. Otherwise if you have more pages to scan click the camera plus icon at the bottom to capture the next page.

Repeat this step until all the pages of the document you want to scan are captured. 

3. Now that I’ve finished scanning my documents I can click review and edit. This screen will let us update the order of our scan (in-case you’ve scanned a page out of order). If you’re happy with it then select “finish”.

4. Microsoft Lens will now drop us into the export page. Here we will need to pick how we wish to export the scan. In our case here I’ll select PDF as I want this document to come out as a file PDF with multiple pages.

5. Next we have two different choice for where to save the document we have just scanned. We can choose local storage, or cloud storage. Lets choose local (iPhone) for now.

6. After selecting local storage Microsoft Lens will show us all the scans we have saved, lets click on the one iv just made. This will open a preview and more importantly give us access to the “export” button.

7. Finally we can do whatever we need to do with the document, in this case ill select “mail” to email it to my laptop. However you can send it via text, whats app, facebook or share the scanned PDF anyway you need. It’s that simple!

Great work trying to follow along, scanning can take a bit of time to get used to on your mobile devices. Always remember that whilst things may be hard at the start they get easier and better with practice. If you need any help with scanning documents you can book a 1-1 digital skills session with us or subscribe to our phone support where we can talk you thought scanning and support you in your learning!