Office Lens, Microsoft’s ubiquitous document scanning app is getting two new features that make it even more versatile, the Office team announced in a blog post today. The first one is called Immersive Reader and may already be familiar to users of OneNote Learning Tools who may have used it to read aloud text in the note taking app.
However, this built-in integration into Office Lens will provide more options with scanned documents, as you can see in the full list of features below:
- Read aloud—Reads text out loud with simultaneous highlighting that improves decoding, fluency and comprehension while sustaining focus and attention.
- Font size—Allows the user to increase or decrease the size of fonts.
- Wide text spacing—Optimizes font spacing in a narrow column view to improve reading fluency for users who suffer from “visual crowding” issues.
- Back five words and forward one page—Allows the user to move backwards and forwards in the content.
- Speaking rate—Allows user to control the speed of the voice reading back the words.
The Office team said that Immersive Reader is also now available on OneNote Online, Word Online as well as Word for the desktop and you can see how to use it in the video below.
Additionally, Office Lens is also improving accessibility on iOS with a new Frame Guide feature that will make it easier for the visually impaired to scan documents with the app. By leveraging’s Apple’s Voice Over technology, the app will guide users by giving voice indications to help them focus on the content they’re currently scanning. You can see how it works in the video below.
For now, these new features are only available on the iOS version of Office Lens, and the Office team didn’t say if the Windows 10 and Android versions would also get them in the future. If you want to try it on your iPhone, you can get the app from the download link below.
