Microsoft Lens vs Numbers

Microsoft Excel

Google Sheets

Revver

PDFelement

Zoho Sheet

Grooper

Compare Microsoft Lens and Numbers based on features, pricing, verified reviews, integrations & more on GetApp. Find out which software is best for your business in 2026.

CamScanner

CamScanner is an OCR solution that helps businesses convert files, edit PDFs, add annotations, manage compressions, and more from within a unified platform. The PDF processing functionality, allows staff members to merge files, split pages, add signatures, create watermarks, and edit text.

Adobe Acrobat

Adobe Acrobat is PDF editing software that can be used to create, convert and share PDF documents. It can convert documents in Microsoft Office formats to PDFs, and vice versa. PDFs can be viewed, annotated, and signed using Adobe Sign and the free Acrobat Reader mobile app.

iLovePDF

iLovePDF is an online service that provides comprehensive tools for PDF document management. The platform offers features for organizing, optimizing, converting, editing, and securing PDF files, including merging, splitting, compressing, and converting PDFs to and from various formats. Available as both web and mobile applications, iLovePDF enables users to work with documents across different devices.

Microsoft Lens (formerly Microsoft Office Lens) is an optical character recognition (OCR) solution designed to help businesses of all sizes capture and record information from images, documents, notes, whiteboards, business cards and more. It allows users to scan and create digital copy of any printed or written text.

Convert to PDF

Data Capture and Transfer

Data Extraction

Data Import/Export

Document Conversion

Document Imaging

Document Storage

File Sharing

Full Text Search

ID Scanning

Image Pre-processing

Multiple Output Formats

Offline Access

PDF Conversion

Search/Filter

Secure Data Storage

Text Editing

Text Extraction

Third-Party Integrations

Reviews for Microsoft Lens come from a wide variety of industries, including education management (9% of reviewers), information technology and services (9%), and computer software (7%). The most frequent use case for Microsoft Lens cited by reviewers is OCR (100% of reviewers).

Users and use cases

The Microsoft Lens integrations most frequently cited by reviewers are: OneDrive (a cloud storage product rated 4.6 out of 5 for its integration with Microsoft Lens) and Microsoft Word (a document generation product, 4.8).

Integrations

Microsoft Lens is an OCR program with key features that include PDF conversion, text extraction, document conversion, and more.

Microsoft Lens

Web-based

iPhone

Windows

Android

iPad

Basic

Solutions Director

nothing critical missing, the integration with one drive sometimes takes more time than desired

Marketing Director

Microsoft Lens is a professional scanner that gave me a premium results for my all scans.

Freelance Photographer

I like how straight forward it is to use Microsoft lens and being able to save the files I scan to my OneDrive.

As well as, scanned files can be converte to a PDF or different format which really helpful.

Legal Assistant

It has been very useful and easy to use which are the things I look for in a system.

Laboratory Scientist

Occasionally when scanning the camera can have an issue determining the proper size of the paper and thus scan it in improperly, however after using the product for a while, it is quite easy to fiddle with the orientation of the paper and get the scanner to properly see the paper's edges.

Microsoft Lens is a fast and efficient way to scan text, edit images, and share or store them in different formats.

Unless the handwriting is super clean and clear, I wouldn't suggest using the ocr feature.

Microsoft Lens may not be the best option for scanning large documents or images on older devices, as it can be slow to load and process the images.

Software Developer

Sometimes it's a bit tricky to get the preview lines to align with the document when taking pictures, especially if the background is the same colour as the document (white).

Fusion Engineer

Setting it setup might be a little difficult, particularly if your phone or tablet is connected to both your personal Microsoft account and an Office 365 account for work or school.

Java Developer

It integrates with the immersive reader feature, which provides text-to-speech functionality.

I enjoy this application since it is simple to use, scans documents and photographs correctly, and allows me to effortlessly send to OneDrive or sharing with friends and family.

The documents can be converted to PDF, PowerPoint, Microsoft Word, etc. or saved in OneNote .

CEO 

You can take a photo and convert it into a pdf with just a few clicks using your smartphone.

Regional Sales Manager West

It also loads them directly into my OneDrive account which makes using the scans even easier.

Operations assistent 

I only need to take a picture to a document and in a seconds I can share it in PDF format

Really handy for taking pictures of expense receipts and even full A4-page documents.

Help Desk Technician II

I like that Microsoft Lens is a part of the Microsoft platform and as such is integrated with the other Microsoft programs seamslessly.

Telecom Technician

You can scan documents in high quality, convert handwritten text into digital text, and edit it in Word, PowerPoint, or Onenote.

Director of Technology

The ability to extract text and convert it to the Immersive Reader is impressive. And then the functionality of Immersive Reader to assist in reading and hearing it read has improve my retention and focus .

Often it fails to exactly crop the pictures, thus I need to adjust it manually, but it does not take much time and it's easy to fix.

IT Admin

Applicable and manageable for all platforms,* Easy setup and management support* Free structure for mobile users* Ability to extract text from images* QR scanner feature* Ability to upload and modify ready-made documents*

It integrates very easily with other Microsoft Office tools such as Word, Onenote, Powerpoint, etc. Or, with its scanning accuracy, you can simply keep the rendered file or share it.

Writer

The main allure is the ability to capture images using the cameras of any device with the Microsoft Lens app installed and then immediately export the images to any Microsoft app.

The app itself also has the ability to highlight and enhance certain types of images eg. tables or graphs in order to make them more legible for easier document processing.

Civil Engineer

Simply a magical tool that gives us confidence to carry out high quality work with successful results to the satisfaction of our clients, the most interesting thing is that we can count on immediate customer service, this service is scarce or null with other SoftWare of the same guy, thus making him the Ace up the sleeve of our company.

Owner

Best of all is the ease and technology with which this app can scan physical files, in the company we use it because it gives us the same quality as a printer scanner, with this app we scan all the documents that our clients bring us to digitize them quickly and accurately.

Customer Service Management

Microsoft lens is an amazing tool for scanning any documents, text extractor and convert to documents into Microsoft 365 docs.

Microsoft Lens works quickly to identify the text that has to be scanned.

product manager

also can scanning documents with handwritten notes or signatures.

Frontend Developer

Overall i feel that the microsoft lens i good option for scanning documents and pdf conversion when you are already using the micrsoft environment then it becomes handy otherwise the scan and edit tools need be increased and the export options too.

Microsoft Office Lens is a trusted tool offering free and excellent scanning capabilities.

Music Teacher

I had many songs ( lyrics & chords) printed and i wanted to transfer them into a digital form so i can use my tablet more on live shows.

Student

it can copy text from the world and turn it into digital, e.g you wrote down some notes and want to add them to your digital note books, it can do that!

Civil engineer

Taking photos of paper documents and making PDF is very quick, especially you don't have scanner nearby. Besides you can edit the pdf or documents and send the files to other teammates.

Sometimes the size of the image to extract text from can be difficult

Assistant Manager

One of the best scanning app that I have used. Once you login with your onedrive all the files that you scan will get synchronized and will be available in your onedrive which can be accessed any device with onedrive logged in.

We have since begun looking at the application of using it with teachers that have print outs that may need to be digitized for students that need them presented in a digital format and the teacher cannot get to the scanner.

To be honest I have not used the application more than just scanning documents and converting them to PDF.

Freelancer

The second plus is the ability to share to a plethora of apps, including to the printer. But, personally I feel the trophy belongs to the ability to export the captured text to the Immersive Reader.

The software makes it easy to copy and paste the text to whatever document you like.

Overall, Microsoft Lens was a great tool to utilize during College and in my work career after, especially with school and government documents.

Manager

I have had a good experience with Microsoft Lens thus far, and the fact that it is free and does not have ads on the app is definitely a bonus in my eyes.

The biggest plus for me was the fact that I could use Microsoft Lens to capture text from a whiteboard that is about 3+ meters away from me. And it comes out clear and crisp.

Area supervisor 

Microsoft lens is compatible and available for use in document in data input

It can sometimes be a lengthy process to save and convert the scans.

I find it does a good job of capturing the document and cropping it appropriately.

Excellent overall performance in comparison to other options, and it integrates well with the office suite.

Document Scanning

Document and Image Conversion

Handwritten Text OCR

Office Use

Reviewers indicate that Microsoft Lens’s text extraction feature, powered by OCR, is highly accurate for printed documents and allows them to quickly copy text from images. Users report that Microsoft Lens is helpful for digitizing content without manual typing, and they value the ability to copy extracted text to the clipboard. They say Microsoft Lens sometimes struggles with handwritten notes and may require repeated attempts for optimal results, but overall find the extraction clear and reliable. Of the 22 Microsoft Lens users who gave detailed accounts of their use of Text Extraction, 95% rated this feature as important or highly important.

Image Cropping

Camera and Image Capture

Note Taking

Document Management

Large Enterprises

Freelancers

Small Business

Mid-size Business

Microsoft

Excel is a spreadsheet management software program with data analysis tools to help users track and visualize data for greater insight and more ways to share data.

Google Sheets is a cloud-based spreadsheet platform designed to help businesses of all sizes collaborate with clients and partners to create and edit data on spreadsheets.

Google Workspace

Google Workspace is a suite of applications from Google which offers a number of tools to communicate and collaborate with colleagues, store files, and manage data from all devices.

Numbers is a spreadsheet application designed to help teams create tables, charts, bars, columns, diagrams, and illustrations to visualize data via web browsers or using devices including Mac, iPad, and iPhone. Managers can create an audio representation of data charts using VoiceOver in iOS.

Charting

Collaboration Tools

Customizable Reports

Customizable Templates

Data Visualization

File Transfer

Real-Time Data

Templates

Reviews for Numbers come from a wide variety of industries, including computer software (6% of reviewers), marketing and advertising (6%), and education management (5%). The most frequent use case for Numbers cited by reviewers is spreadsheet (100% of reviewers).

Most reviewers indicate that Numbers offers excellent value for money since it is free with Apple devices and requires no subscription. Some users report that its lack of advanced features and limited platform availability reduce its cost-effectiveness for certain needs.

Value for money

The Numbers integrations most frequently cited by reviewers are: Microsoft Excel (a spreadsheet product rated 4.5 out of 5 for its integration with Numbers) and Pages (a productivity product, 4.7).

Numbers is a spreadsheet tool offering key features such as data import/export, search/filter, data visualization, file transfer, charting, and customizable templates, among others.

Numbers

Projects Manager

Maybe there are ways to make numbers more personalised and therefore user friendly to myself but I have not spent the time to explore it when Excel is exactly set up with no editing.

Administrador

In addition to the possibility of formatting and design, you have the search button that helps you easily find what you need, making the task of both adding data and finding it very simple.

It seems to have all the same features and can calculate formula's and organise data.

Therapist

I like that Numbers is a native app on my devices, and the hand-off means I can access it on desktop, laptop and phone.

The flexibility of including lines and even more sheets within the same spreadsheet, something that you can't do in Excel.

Communications and Children’s Ministry

It is an amazingly designed app on Apple’s platforms and integrates well inside and outside the organization with Apple Business Essentials / Business Manager.

This could be because I was bought up on Excel but it just seems more intuitive and user friendly than Numbers to me.

It's not really about numbers, but as a long time excel user, it took some adjustments, just short cut keys etc.

I used it just like an excel spreadsheet with formulas in cells and as a chart and it worked as I needed to

Organizing Director

Numbers is an effective spreadsheet tool, particularly for budgeting, but it does not necessarily stand out as better than Excel or Sheets.

Pastor of Digital Ministry

The most difficult thing about numbers is the learning curve. If one is used to using other spreadsheet applications, it takes some time to figure out where everything is.

I honestly didn't find any negative points, as it is even possible to send or receive spreadsheets from competitors and the integration takes place normally.

Yoga Instructor

I wish the basic "new file" had slightly bigger cells and the filled cells defaulted to a colour other than grey, but really these are very minor issues which are quite easy to change.

Training Manager

We've had to use this program on an apple device's when alternative programs were not available to use or purchase due to our IT policies.

This began entirely for business purposes but I now love my spreadsheets so much, I have created several from my personal admin and household organisation - quick and easy and makes one feel in control! :-)

It is great,especially on Apple products where you can go from iPhone to laptop or Ipad easily while editing the same file.

Stem Instructor

Features are limited, UI needs improvement, and formatting causes issues for cross platform use.

Paralegal

In the Law Firm I work at I have to constantly retrieve data from clients who find themselves in complex situations outside of their country of origin, so not having to deal with an overwhelming UI makes it easier and less stressful for me to use the tool without having to deal with lots of tools I don't really need for case administration stuff.

Personal Assistant

I use this product daily and it helps collate information quickly and easily, while being able to convert to other file types quickly for sharing with other users.

Associate Pastor of Youth and Music Ministries

It can look somewhat messy at times and isn't as easy to customize as Excel.

Pastor

If you are used to the way Excel and Google Sheets work, Numbers is a different structure all together.

Director

It has a reasonable feature set and can import excel and csv files.

I struggle getting on with this software. Whenever using it I always wish I was using Excel.

It has lots of options for how to sort and configure your data.

The data visualization is a bit more limited so I use other apps for that function

I would like if they had somewhat more advanced templates, I usually have to create my own because there’s never anything I’m looking for.

Sheets tries to mirror excel for that reason, and Numbers does not necessarily try and do the same.

Technical Lead for Workplace Solutions

No need to go out and buy Excel if you don't need the additional features/ functionality and are looking for something straight forward.

Managing Recruitment Consultant

When I moved into a deeper analysis of budgeting and spend analysis, the tool was really useful to visualise and action adjustments via the spreadsheet through numbers.

Microsoft Lens vs Numbers Comparison (2026)

Microsoft Lens

Numbers

Overview

Video & Screenshots

Pricing

User reviews

Key features

Integrations

Alternatives