You don't need a dedicated camera to get a good document photo. The phone in your pocket is enough, as long as you pay attention to a few small details below. The sharper the photo, the more accurate the data transferred to Excel, and the less you'll have to fix afterward.
1. Shoot in a well-lit place
Lighting is the most important factor. Shoot near a window or under even, bright light, and avoid shadows from your hand and phone falling on the paper. If you use the flash, check whether a glare is covering any text.
2. Capture the whole sheet of paper
Put the entire document in the frame, including the corners and the header. Don't let your fingers or anything else cover the text, especially at the edges of the paper, where important figures like totals or dates often are.
3. Shoot straight on
Place the document on a flat surface and hold the phone parallel to the paper. A slightly tilted photo still works, but shooting straight on keeps rows and columns from getting distorted, especially with tables that have many columns.
4. Hold steady for a sharp photo
A shaky photo makes digits easy to mix up, such as 1 and 7. Tap the screen to focus, hold your hand steady, then take the shot. You can rest your elbows on the table for stability.
5. For multiple sheets of the same type, send them in one batch
For documents of the same type, photograph them one by one and send them in a single batch. The results will be combined into one Excel file with the same column layout, making filtering and summarizing easier.
When should you use a service?
If you have dozens of sheets of paper to put into spreadsheets every week, typing them by hand is both time-consuming and error-prone. In that case, DataLiti's data entry from photos to Excel service will get you back an Excel file with the right columns and the right template, ready to use. You just need to take photos using the tips above and send them to us.