Microsoft begins deploying the ability to turn table data photos into Excel spreadsheets

Microsoft has begun to make available its "Insert Data from an Image" feature that allows users to take pictures of table data on their phone and automatically turn them into an Excel spreadsheet. Microsoft announced this feature at its Ignite conference last September.

The feature comes first on Android phones. The Android Excel application will automatically convert the images from the printed data tables into fully editable table data in Excel. Microsoft officials said the magic was happening via the new image recognition feature. Microsoft officials announced last week that iOS support for this feature would be "available soon".

Last year, Microsoft had announced the addition of new data types to Excel, starting with geography and stocks. The new geographic data type supports states, countries, postal codes, and cities. Stocks include stock symbols, fund names, company names, and can display discounted prices. Microsoft's strategy is to add multiple types of smart data to Excel over time.

Microsoft Knowledge Graph already feeds Bing and Excel data types. It is this Cloud / Knowledge Graph connection that, behind Microsoft, describes these new data types as being infused by AI.