Microsoft has worked a lot on their Office mobile apps. What started out as applications that basically only worked as document viewers now seem to be real. If you have an Office 365 subscription, the mobile version of Word or Excel opens up new possibilities for increasing productivity.
Microsoft isn’t just improving these apps to match their desktop counterparts. There are some features that really make mobile apps stand out. In this case, one of these functions is to insert data from the picture.
With this feature, you can take your phone or tablet and take a photo of tabular information such as product label or specification. The application then sends the image to the cloud, where the machine vision software interprets it and turns it into a regular table. Here’s how to do it.
Using Insert Data From Image
- The first step after opening the application is to create a new Excel document.
Using “Insert Data from Image”- The first step, once you open the application, is Create a New Excel Document .
- Then tap this icon.
- The camera will open. Align the data you want to import on the screen. You will see a red outline where the program will find the information.
When you’re done, hit the capture button.
You will now see a cropped image containing information. You can trim it if it contains irrelevant text. When you’re happy with the image, click on the checkmark.
Next, you will see a preview of the information. In this case, Excel is having problems with some of the records in the table. You can view each one here. Click Change to fix errors, or click Ignore to skip one and move on to the next.
When you’re happy with your spreadsheet, click Insert to put the information into your spreadsheet. Done!
Obviously, you can still edit the spreadsheet however you want, in case you missed something during the validation phase.
If you are getting a lot of errors, this can help ensure the image is sharp and there is enough light. Either way, this is the fastest way to quickly import the data you find in vivo, so it’s definitely worth knowing.
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