Turn your Windows Phone into a personal scanner with Office Lens; now available to download

Office Lens from Microsoft has just gone live in the Windows Phone Store. The app was previously available as a beta, but today we're looking at the final version. Those who aren't familiar with Office Lens, it enables users to enhance and take photos of whiteboards and documentation, saving everything in OneNote.

It's an important companion app that helps make it less likely to miss important details during presentations, lose documentation or other paper-based information altogether (be it receipts, business cards, etc). Using OCR technology, Office Lens instantly recognizes text in documents, business cards, and even whiteboards, and then converts them into searchable electronic files

Some example scenarios would include the capture of presentations to then share information with co-workers, taking a capture of a menu or even saving itinerary notes. Making digital copies of important documents is a useful backup option, with the added ability to make changes and even search through text. 

Here are highlighted features listed on the store:

  • With Whiteboard mode, Office Lens trims and cleans up glares and shadows.
  • With Document mode, Office Lens trims and colors them perfectly.
  • Save pictures not only to your camera roll, but directly into OneNote. You can see the images across all your devices. 

It's worth noting you'll need your Microsoft account at hand to log in to use Office Lens. You can download Office Lens from the Windows Phone Store. Thanks, Rum, for the tip!

Rich Edmonds
Senior Editor, PC Build

Rich Edmonds was formerly a Senior Editor of PC hardware at Windows Central, covering everything related to PC components and NAS. He's been involved in technology for more than a decade and knows a thing or two about the magic inside a PC chassis. You can follow him on Twitter at @RichEdmonds.