Microsoft Launches Standalone 'Office Lens' Scanning App for iPhone - MacRumorsOpen MenuShow RoundupsShow Forums menuVisit ForumsOpen Sidebar
Skip to Content

Microsoft Launches Standalone 'Office Lens' Scanning App for iPhone

by

Microsoft today announced the launch of the Office Lens app for iPhone, following its debut on Windows Phone last year. Office Lens turns the iPhone into a portable scanner, much like popular scanning app Scanner Pro, but it has the ability to upload scanned documents to both OneNote and OneDrive, making them accessible on all devices.

Office Lens' scanning capabilities are already built into Microsoft's OneNote app for iOS, but today's Office Lens release is a standalone app. It's able to scan things like business cards, notes, restaurant menus, whiteboards, receipts, and more.


Office Lens is able to detect the corners of a document that's being photographed, which allows it to automatically crop the image to the right size. It also cleans it up images and enhances them for better readability, and it can even straighten images taken at an angle.

The app includes optical character recognition (OCR) to make receipts and scanned documents searchable via key word in OneNote or OneDrive, and it's able to convert images of paper documents and whiteboard notes into Word documents, PowerPoint presentations, and PDF files.

There's also an option to automatically generate contacts when business cards are photographed, and images scanned can be inserted into OneNote or OneDrive in different formats, including DOCX, PPTX, JPG, and PDF. Images can also be saved, exported, and shared.

Microsoft's Office Lens for iPhone app can be downloaded from the App Store for free. [Direct Link]

Top Rated Comments

146 months ago
Loving the new Microsoft. They are quickly becoming one of my favorite companies.
Score: 8 Votes (Like | Disagree)
146 months ago
Loving the new Microsoft. They are quickly becoming one of my favorite companies.

Seriously. It's kind of getting weird now. I still mostly use apple devices, but I'm surprised by how many Microsoft apps I'm using on those devices, and loving it.
Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)
jclo Avatar
146 months ago
Does MacRumors have an affiliate agreement with AppShopper? Or why do they link to their page instead of directly to the App Store?
AppShopper is our sister site. We link to both because some people don't like to be redirected to the iTunes Store when attempting to look at an app. You can always find the direct iTunes links in the brackets where it says [Direct Link].
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)
146 months ago
Does MacRumors have an affiliate agreement with AppShopper? Or why do they link to their page instead of directly to the App Store?

AppShopper is run by MacRumors
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)
146 months ago
The app is actually quite impressive. The automatic detection and correction of distortion is easily among- if not the best in the App Store
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)
146 months ago
Let's hope so, it would make a use difference for me and for others I reckon.

You reckon correctly.

When I found this app on Friday, I used it at every meeting and wow. I like that I can sit in the corner of the room and it can still take a picture as if I'm in the center.
...and record the meeting notes, too.
...and if you type transcribe the audio, when you play it back, OneNote will highlight the text as the audio plays.

OneNote is awesome. As soon as it became available for the iPad, I ditched Evernote and started futterwacken (http://aliceinwonderland.wikia.com/wiki/Futterwack). Vigorously. :D
Score: 1 Votes (Like | Disagree)

Popular Stories

MacBook Neo and Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 3x Feature

New Study Highlights Advantages of $549 Windows Laptop Over MacBook Neo

Wednesday May 13, 2026 10:38 am PDT by
Microsoft has responded to the MacBook Neo by commissioning a study that highlights advantages of some Windows laptops. Market research firm Signal65 evaluated four Windows laptops:Lenovo's IdeaPad Slim 3x Lenovo's Yoga 7i HP's OmniBook 5 HP's OmniBook X FlipWith a starting price of $549.99 on Best Buy's online store in the U.S. at the time of this writing, the IdeaPad Slim 3x is the only ...
nvidia rtx spark

Nvidia Challenges Apple Silicon With New RTX Spark PC Chip

Monday June 1, 2026 3:41 am PDT by
Nvidia is entering the consumer PC chip business for the first time and has thrown down the gauntlet to Apple, describing its new RTX Spark processor as "the most efficient PC chip ever built." Nvidia says its RTX Spark Superchip is purpose-built to run AI agents that can work proactively across apps and run in the background as a personal "teammate." With the chip, Nvidia says users...
macOS 27 on MacBook Pro

Apple Says macOS 27 Won't Be Compatible With These Macs

Wednesday June 3, 2026 8:29 am PDT by
During WWDC 2025, Apple revealed that macOS 26 Tahoe would be the final major macOS version for Intel-based Macs. macOS 27 will be compatible with Apple silicon Macs only, meaning that you will need a Mac with an M-series chip or a MacBook Neo with an A18 Pro chip in order to install the software update. Apple will unveil macOS 27 during its WWDC 2026 keynote this Monday, June 8, and the...