Prepare Microsoft Office Lens و Adobe Scanner is one of the most popular document scanning apps, after Camscanner. Both offer the convenience of converting printed text into digital text with the press of a button. All you need is some decent lighting, and the apps will take care of the rest.
But as we all know, the perfect app is a myth. And even these apps end up with a flaw or two.
When it comes to choosing the best choice between Office Lens and Adobe When it comes to scanning, comparisons are bound to happen. So, in today's post, we'll compare Office Lens to Adobe Scan and see which scanner is best for you.
Without further ado, let's dive right in.
Multi-scan
Multi-page scanning is useful when you need to scan a group of pages together. At the same time, you don't want to lose track of the order or the pages. It's an added advantage if the application has a feature to consolidate all of these pages into a single file. PDF elegant.
After scanning a document, it gives you: Adobe Scan an option to add more pages (yes, that little icon on the left). All you have to do is grab a document from your gallery or scan a new one, then combine them into a PDF.
The best part is that the document will be divided into separate pages to make it easier to distinguish.
Although Lens also has the same feature (Camera+ icon at the bottom), it looks like a PDF The output is cluttered, with all pages stacked on top of each other by default. This results in the document looking cluttered.
Although the situation is not clear when scanning the unified pages, the file PDF It starts to look very messy when you scan receipts and bills together.
The good news is that Lens also lets you download scans to your phone's gallery as individual files. Using this, you can then stitch them together into a PDF. Backfire? You bet.
Landscape Documents
When it comes to scanning documents in landscape mode, it excels. Adobe Scan in the task. It recognizes the document layout almost instantly and takes a snapshot of it. You don't need to click on the document; you don't need to adjust the focus. It does everything automatically, and it does it quite beautifully.
Interestingly, Office Lens can also recognize documents in landscape mode. However, recognition isn't fast and fluid, and you may have to struggle with the camera positioning a bit, especially if the background is light. In fact, in one of my attempts, Lens captured the entire length of the white table underneath with the document shot.
The bottom line is that the app does the job well, but when it comes to quality, it Adobe Scan works better.
Upload your tests
Fortunately, both Adobe Scan and Office Lens let you adjust the borders of scanned documents. In case Adobe Scan: You'll be asked whether you want to adjust the borders manually after each scan, or later. I generally prefer the first option because it allows me to manually adjust the edges of the document before saving it as a file. PDF.
In the case of Office Lens, border detection is automatic by default. Once the scan is complete, you can use the cropping tool to further adjust it to your liking.
Winner? Let's call it a draw here.
Scan distortion and quality
Scanning white documents with scanning apps is not a problem at all. It's glossy documents and colored paper that cause problems. In some cases, you may notice color bleeding. Or, in the worst-case scenario, the colored background makes the text unrecognizable.
Thankfully, neither of these apps is the same. However, I found Adobe Scan to handle colors better. The lens tends to bleed slightly, which can be adjusted later via the app's options.
Text recognition and other various features
Here, too, Adobe Scan is better. You simply long-press on a scanned document to copy text from it. Of course, if your handwriting is as bad as mine, Scan can't do much to recognize it. But when it comes to printed text and relatively easy-to-understand handwriting, Scan lets you copy and paste the text wherever you want.
What's more, Adobe Scan has an added advantage over other Adobe apps. So, if you have Acrobat installed on your phone, you can use it to open PDF files directly.
Other than that, Adobe Scan has other useful features that let you reorder scans, annotate them, or add your own valuable comments.
Unfortunately, Office Lens is pretty basic and doesn't come with any OCR functionality. It just lets you scan, and that's it.
On the upside, it lets you add text, change the position, or annotate scanned documents. Additionally, when you enable the Immersive Reader option, it reads text from a scanned document.
Storage
When it comes to storage, Microsoft Office Lens wins the game. This small scanner gives you plenty of options for storing scans.
You can choose to store it in your phone's gallery or as a PDF file. Most importantly, you can also use OneNote to access the document from anywhere.
Aside from that, Lens also lets you export these documents to Microsoft Word and PowerPoint.
This is useful if you notice some errors in your scanned document, and you need to edit them before printing or scanning again.
On the other hand, Adobe Scan has limited options. This Adobe app stores everything in the cloud, giving you less control over how you manage your documents. You won't be able to edit these documents directly. Fortunately, there's an option to create a copy, which you can then share as a PDF via email or WhatsApp.
As mentioned above, you can always save PDF files to Adobe Cloud.
Verdict: Adobe Scan
Back in the day, when I got my first Android phone, Camscanner was one of the first apps I installed. But a few years later, the premium version was a little too pricey for my taste. That began my search for the perfect scanning app.
I loved Microsoft Office Lens for its simplicity and ease of use. Additionally, the fact that it stores scanned documents in your phone's gallery as well as on OneDrive was the cherry on top. However, all these neat features couldn't beat the ease with which Adobe Scan recognizes and scans documents. Additionally, the auto-capture feature is the cherry on top. For me, it's still magic.
But ultimately, this is my opinion. Which app do you like more? Thing؟
