Turning documents into material

What you will learn How to turn document files into something an agent can work with, and the relationship between the original and the copy.

If file formats and encodings are unfamiliar, start with Shapes of data.

The problem — documents are not readable as-is

PDFs and spreadsheets can pile up in a working directory without an agent being able to work with them. The fundamental way to reduce hallucination is "give it material and have it answer from within that" — and the material has to be in a readable form.

You make a text copy

A markdown copy sits beside the document.

That it is business-plan.pdf.md rather than business-plan.md matters. The original name is kept whole, so you know which file a copy came from by name alone.

Four formats

Only these four. It decides by extension, so the name has to be right.

PDF differs from the rest

A frequently missed point.

graph TD
  A["Original document"] --> B{"Which kind?"}
  B -->|"PDF"| C["The copy is a supplement<br/>tables and figures need the original"]
  B -->|"docx · xlsx · pptx"| D["The copy is everything<br/>the original cannot be read"]

Find in the copy, confirm in the original — for PDFs. Locate "there is a revenue table on page 3" in the copy, then have it read page 3 of the original for the exact figures. For spreadsheets the copy is everything, so a poor copy is the end of it — important figures need a human check.

The Explorer tab shows the folder's files, and is where you make text copies from documents.

When copies are made

Not sweeping a whole folder is the default. Descending through everything converts unrelated documents too, and on a large folder that takes a long time.

If a copy exists and the original has not changed, it is not remade. You can force a rebuild — for when you edited the original and the copy is stale.

Searching files

Once copies exist, you can search by content.

That request does not work with only the original PDFs. The copy is what search catches.

For a working directory heavy with documents, making copies is step one. Skip it and every summary request reads whole files, which fills the context.

The practical flow

The typical order for a document-heavy folder:

Step 3 is the key. Rather than reading all 100 documents, you narrow to 3 and read those. Same principle as when you have too many tools — reducing candidates raises accuracy.

How git fits in

If the working directory is a repository, decide what to version.

Committing the copies makes when and how a document changed visible as history. A changed PDF shows no diff; markdown does.

Commit messages

Hand committing to an agent and it picks words that mean something in this repository for the subject. It surveys all filenames, ignores names that are too common, and uses the ones that actually identify an area.

Rather than maintaining a list of framework boilerplate, it asks the repository directly — a name carried by a large share of the files is boilerplate by definition.

Things to watch

Copies go stale

Edit the original and leave the copy and the agent confidently states old content. Rebuild the copy when you change the original.

Check tables and figures

Tables are the most fragile part of document conversion. For any judgement resting on amounts, dates, or quantities, confirm against the original. "Always verify numbers" from things to watch out for applies directly.

Do not just drop sensitive documents in

The moment it is in the working directory, that folder's scope is the agent's area of operation. If the system is registered to Connect, workspace members reach it too.

Check yourself

1. Why is the copy named report.pdf.md rather than report.md?

2. How does the copy's role differ between PDF and Excel?

3. Why make copies first in a document-heavy folder?

Now everything joined into one → Case study — a content factory