Boost Your Whiteboard Abilities With Microsoft Office Lens

Microsoft recently released the iOS version of Office Lens, a mobile scanning app that allows users to take pictures of their documents, photos and whiteboards to save them for later. It’s like an on-the-go scanner. What is most exciting about the app for me is its whiteboard capabilities.  Often times our customers tell us they take photos of their whiteboard with their phones to save for later. The Office Lens app takes it to the next level and allows whiteboard notes to be converted into editable Word or PowerPoint presentations, saved as a PDF or onto OneNote or OneDrive. Here are five reasons I think it’s a great app for a whiteboard user:

1. You can take pictures of your whiteboard meeting notes and save them for later on either Word or PowerPoint. This is handy because if you want to collaborate on your notes away from the whiteboard, you can always have them with you and edit them as well. For example, when the images are uploaded into PowerPoint, everything you drew on the whiteboard becomes a PowerPoint drawing object that can be manipulated in any way.
   


2. The app automatically detects the whiteboard when taking the picture and crops out everything else. This eliminates the need for costly and complicated electronic devices.
   


3. Takes great quality photographs that you can edit in Word or PowerPoint. The document allows you to upload your whiteboard notes in a myriad of ways including OneNote, OneDrive, Word, PowerPoint or PDF. The whiteboard capabilities get rid of any potential glare and shadows of the whiteboard.
   


4. You can take a photo from almost any angle and it will still detect the whiteboard. Once the photo is taken, you are able to see the photo straightened and cropped out accurately.
   


5. The import option allows you to take old photos and make them into working documents as well, so all of your old whiteboard photos you took in your business meetings can now be put on OneNote, shared and manipulated.

It’s a great business tool for employees who use whiteboards in meetings and want to collaborate, edit or save the notes after the meeting. It’s a great way to use your whiteboard on the go!

Magnatag Visible Systems provides whiteboards to thousands of corporations for their collaboration needs. Visit www.magnatag.com or call a visible systems specialist at 1-800-624-4154 for more information.

---

Resources:
http://www.macworld.com/article/2905384/first-look-office-lens-scans-documents-and-whiteboards-into-editable-office-files.html

http://blogs.office.com/2015/04/02/office-lens-comes-to-iphone-and-android/