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Microsoft comes up with an interesting new feature for the mobile version of Excel. If you have the software on your smartphone, you will be able to take a picture of a data table printed on paper. The Excel app then converts it into a fully editable spreadsheet.

Microsoft announces this in a blog on its website. The function is initially only available for Android and makes it possible to take a picture of a data table. The app then converts that photo into an editable spreadsheet. It seems that this is only possible with data tables that are actually printed on paper. Furthermore, Microsoft has announced that it intends to release an iOS version of the feature shortly.

Automatic data entry

The function works with the help of new software developed by Microsoft. It is a new kind of sculpture recognition, but details about it have not been published. In any case, the function delivers on a promise made by Microsoft. In September 2018, the company promised that it would bring this kind of functionality to its mobile app.

So now this one’s finally here. The function allows you to use the camera of your smartphone to place data in Excel. It’s all automatic. As an end user, you no longer need to enter data manually. This allows you to work more accurately, because if you copy a complete table by hand, something can go wrong. As the video below demonstrates on Twitter, Excel takes over all the data in exactly the same way as in the printed data table.

https://twitter.com/OfficeNews/status/1101234527651987458

More functionality

When Microsoft announced this feature in September 2018, it also announced that it would make new data types available in Excel. This includes geographical data from countries, states, postal codes and cities. Stock information was also added to the Office service, such as company names, funds and links that make it possible to retrieve current data.

This news article was automatically translated from Dutch to give Techzine.eu a head start. All news articles after September 1, 2019 are written in native English and NOT translated. All our background stories are written in native English as well. For more information read our launch article.