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Microsoft Excel Can Now Turn Pictures of Tables Into Actual, Editable Tables (thurrott.com)

Posted by msmash on from the interesting-features dept.

Microsoft has rolled out a new feature to Excel's Android app that makes it easy to capture data. From a report: Excel now lets you take pictures of a document/paper in real life, crop the picture, and turn that into an actual, editable data on Excel. After capturing the data, you can edit the data to make sure Excel's image recognition is 100% accurate, and make any changes if some of the scanned data were incorrect. The company says it will roll out this feature to Excel for iOS app soon.

43 of 82 comments (clear)

  1. Obligatory xkcd by CyberSlugGump · · Score: 5, Funny

    .NORM Normal File Format

    1. Re:Obligatory xkcd by snakeplissken · · Score: 2

      And no, xkcd, everybody doesn't do that.

      It's a joke, jokes don't have to be 100% accurate descriptions of reality.
      In fact if all jokes have to be 100% accurate descriptions of reality, after a while they might... stop being funny.

    2. Re:Obligatory xkcd by jellomizer · · Score: 1

      Enough to be annoying. Heck I get emails, with a screen shots of the scan of a fax one has received, of an excel file.

      I can barely read it myself, and for some reason the senders seem reluctant to send them the excel file, mostly because they don't know how to attach one, but they are able to go to insane methods to give me an unreadable images.

      --
      If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
    3. Re:Obligatory xkcd by _Sharp'r_ · · Score: 1

      Now if they could try adding in something simple, which would probably take the right developer less than a day to create and test (because it's already built into VBA), like regex support in the find box....

      --
      The party of stupid and the party of evil get together and do something both stupid and evil, then call it bipartisan.
  2. RE: Microsoft Excel Can Now Turn Pictures of Table by BradyB · · Score: 2

    I totally read that as edible tables.

    --

    Good is never enough, when you dream of being great!
  3. Broken. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Fed it all of these: https://unsplash.com/search/photos/table

    Bunch of garbage - didn't convert a single one into anything that made sense at all.

  4. Someone has to ask... by QuietLagoon · · Score: 1

    ... why did it take this long before Microsoft added this feature to their document processing suite? Really. Is this such a minor feature that they only got around to it now? Or did no one even think of this until recently?

    1. Re:Someone has to ask... by Luthair · · Score: 2

      Well on a PC what would you do? try to hold paper up to your shitty webcam blocking the screen so you can't see what it is capturing or focusing on?

    2. Re:Someone has to ask... by ArhcAngel · · Score: 2

      Easy answer...It is HARD. OCR has been around for years but even today it is hit or miss except for the most sophisticated systems.
      I'm curious how well it translates on a mobile device. I've used OCR on PDF and Word documents that were just images and even when the text was perfectly legible it had a hard time getting the letters right and the formatting was always all over the place.

      --
      "A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
    3. Re:Someone has to ask... by chispito · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Easy answer...It is HARD. OCR has been around for years but even today it is hit or miss except for the most sophisticated systems. I'm curious how well it translates on a mobile device. I've used OCR on PDF and Word documents that were just images and even when the text was perfectly legible it had a hard time getting the letters right and the formatting was always all over the place.

      Pretty sure the OCR will not be done on your device, but elsewhere.

      --
      The Daddy casts sleep on the Baby. The Baby resists!
    4. Re:Someone has to ask... by QuietLagoon · · Score: 2

      Because Microsoft has had an Office suite monopoly for soooo looooong that they haven't needed to actually innovate until now.

      Yes, that is my view as well.

    5. Re:Someone has to ask... by ClickOnThis · · Score: 1

      Easy answer...It is HARD. OCR has been around for years but even today it is hit or miss except for the most sophisticated systems.

      Yes, generalized OCR is hard. But the problem gets much easier if you limit the "alphabet" of characters you're trying to recognize. Ten digits plus comma, space and perhaps currency symbols is a much smaller alphabet than full unicode, or even just ASCII.

      --
      If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
    6. Re:Someone has to ask... by mobby_6kl · · Score: 2

      It's not that hard. I used Fine Reader to OCR stuff more than a decade ago and it worked well enough on printed text to be very useful. Complex layout with tables, multiple columns of text and so on could be a challenge, but knowing it's supposed to be an Excel table, combined with a decade of neural net development, it should've been relatively trivial.

    7. Re: Someone has to ask... by jbengt · · Score: 1

      Screenshots typically have more image artifacts than a good hi-res jpeg. For characters, a decent resolution .png, .gif, or .tiff would be even better.

    8. Re:Someone has to ask... by phantomfive · · Score: 1

      even today it is hit or miss except for the most sophisticated systems.

      I don't know, Google translate does a really, really good job figuring out what I'm trying to write, sometimes even when I write the wrong character.

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    9. Re:Someone has to ask... by chispito · · Score: 1

      > Pretty sure the OCR will not be done on your device, but elsewhere.

      C'mon, just say it already. Microsoft is only doing this because they want to look at those numbers. This is Slashdot, nobody's going to think any less of you for suggesting MS (sorry, "M$") wants to spy on you and your data like it was Google.

      But I wasn't meaning to suggest that. Microsoft are far more toward the Apple side of the equation than the Google side. They really only want to look at your data to 1) Sell you more of their own products and 2) Make their products better.

      --
      The Daddy casts sleep on the Baby. The Baby resists!
  5. Why mobile only? by aaron44126 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    You don't know how many times that I received a screen shot of some text in a Word document. But I've gotten the same thing a number of times in an Excel spreadsheet as well. They should put this in desktop Excel.

    1. Re:Why mobile only? by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      And this despite their signature Windows device having not 1 but 2 cameras on it.

  6. PDFs by doconnor · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Can the PC version excel do this with PDF files? That should be a lot easier.

    1. Re:PDFs by Bourdain · · Score: 1

      I'm not aware of the PC version having this feature sadly

      That said, if you do this with any regularity, ABBYY FineReader (especially version 8 which is tough to find) works marvelously - probably better than any add-on feature in excel

      I've had to spend many hours doing this on large quantities of bank/brokerage statements in the context of consulting engagements

  7. WUT? by Crash+Dummy+Redux · · Score: 1

    Why would I want to edit a table in Excel when I have 3D modeling programs?

    1. Re:WUT? by novakyu · · Score: 2

      Because Excel will give you a 2D representation to work with from the cropped picture; to use 3D modeling program, you need to take photos of the table from multiple perspectives, in order to build a 3D model.

    2. Re:WUT? by pgmrdlm · · Score: 1

      Aren't you so special. Ever think not everyone has that capability and this could help them? Naaa, your like my x wife. You only think about your self

      --
      Anonymous comments are as pathetic as the anonymous "sources" that contaminate gutless journalism from the New York Time
  8. Re:So wait... does that mean... by Oswald+McWeany · · Score: 1

    .... if I use Excel, I can somehow take a picture of a table from their catalog and customize it?

    Damn English and its stupid homynyms....

    It's probably cheaper just to go to the furniture store than pay for a Microsoft Office subscription.

    --
    "That's the way to do it" - Punch
  9. Re: Microsoft Excel Can Now Turn Pictures of Table by pr0fessor · · Score: 2

    Yes, edible table put out by Iodine Bucks the same guy that makes the pepperoni plates.

    Why, because traditional tables are stupid!

  10. Re: Microsoft Excel Can Now Turn Pictures of Table by EvilSS · · Score: 1

    Definitely not alone. I was all excited to mail my boss edible excel reports.

    --
    I browse on +1 so AC's need not respond, I won't see it.
  11. Big fricking deal by ClickOnThis · · Score: 4, Interesting

    So you can convert an image of numbers into data in a spreadsheet? It's a trivial improvement on something we have been able to do for decades.

    Wake me up when the software can discover the relationship between the columns in the table, and insert the appropriate cell-references and math operations.

    --
    If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
    1. Re:Big fricking deal by doom · · Score: 2

      Wake me up when the software can discover the relationship between the columns in the table, and insert the appropriate cell-references and math operations.

      Thinking in terms of "discovering the relationship" is old-fashioned thinking, today's advanced software can automatically try every possible relationship and use a crowd-sourced technique to determine the most popular of all possible underlying data models.

      And column summation errors can now be introduced automatically to eliminate any legal responsibility for re-working estimates to hit desired targets.

    2. Re:Big fricking deal by MerlinAldous · · Score: 1

      Haha. Totally hilarious. But that would be an awesome feature. Just leaving this here: https://coincircle.com/l/fLS02...

  12. Re: Microsoft Excel Can Now Turn Pictures of Table by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 1

    I totally read that as edible tables.

    Me too. Then I thought about edible underwear. I'm sick.

    --
    The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
  13. Re: Microsoft Excel Can Now Turn Pictures of Table by Oswald+McWeany · · Score: 1

    Me too. Then I thought about edible underwear. I'm sick.

    You shouldn't eat them off "working women" if you don't want to get sick.

    --
    "That's the way to do it" - Punch
  14. Taken from a Big Bang Theory episode? by QuietLagoon · · Score: 2

    ... you know, the one where they develop an app that takes a picture of an equation and then the app solves the equation?

    1. Re:Taken from a Big Bang Theory episode? by wildchild07770 · · Score: 1

      I'm pretty sure that's been done, I remember trying some app a few years ago that did that. I think it was something from Google back around the cardboard VR days. It wasn't perfect and no clue how advanced math it could do, but proof of concept exists somewhere.

  15. Re: Microsoft Excel Can Now Turn Pictures of Table by Oswald+McWeany · · Score: 1

    Definitely not alone. I was all excited to mail my boss edible excel reports.

    I can't imagine Microsoft would make very tasty tables even if they could make edible tables. They'd probably be old fashioned from expired ingredients- and you'd have to eat them with three fingers.

    --
    "That's the way to do it" - Punch
  16. Dumnnnn by Impy+the+Impiuos+Imp · · Score: 2

    How about adding a spreadsheet diff tool that isn't a useless piece of shit designed without usability in mind?

    --
    (-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
  17. Re: Microsoft Excel Can Now Turn Pictures of Table by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 1

    Me too. Then I thought about edible underwear. I'm sick.

    You shouldn't eat them off "working women" if you don't want to get sick.

    I'm speechless.

    --
    The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
  18. Re: Microsoft Excel Can Now Turn Pictures of Table by StormReaver · · Score: 1

    I initially read it as turning pictures of tablets into actual, editable tablets. It made absolutely no sense to me until I came back a few hours later and re-read the headline.

  19. Automatic conversions by manu0601 · · Score: 1

    Will it interpret units and wreck the data as usual?

  20. can you trust these results? by sp0tter · · Score: 1

    The whole point of a spreadsheet is to ensure accurate data. If there is just some OCR being done on a lossy image how much faith are you willing to put in the results? The story says you can manually inspect the table to ensure accuracy but is that much better then hand entering data?

    --
    you don't eat crackers in the bed of your future--or else you'll get all scratchy
    1. Re:can you trust these results? by yes-but-no · · Score: 1

      Isn't typing a 100x10 grid of numbers harder than checking if they are the same? The tool aims at helping you not eliminating the human altogether (kinda the driver assists in self-driving cars, not fully autonomous). Also the lesser work can be done by a less skilled person (say an intern)

    2. Re:can you trust these results? by yes-but-no · · Score: 1

      Once I needed the lyrics of a song (in lang foo). Internet search I could find only a jpeg image (likely a scan from a physical song book). I need to edit it. I found a online OCR which did a pretty good job, reducing my work by say 90% or more. Yes there were some errors but the time/effort I saved is significant. So OCR has its place and with AI/ML abilities increasing, they get better with time.

    3. Re:can you trust these results? by sp0tter · · Score: 1

      What happens when you've got 1000 distinct numbers and a 6 gets OCR'd into an 8 and it's in the ten-thousands column. May as well just type them in if you care about the data. If you don't care and just want to look like you've done the work then this is a great solution.

      --
      you don't eat crackers in the bed of your future--or else you'll get all scratchy
  21. Accuracy vs Semantics by thermidor · · Score: 1

    After capturing the data, you can edit the data to make sure Excel's image recognition is 100% accurate

    Obviously the point is that the image recognition is NOT 100% accurate, otherwise you wouldn't need to edit the data. Otherwise my 2002 Volvo is a self-driving car, notwithstanding the minor course corrections I need to constantly make to make sure its self-driving capability is 100% accurate.