Business files
Files and documents
Move from a folder of source material to an output someone can inspect, edit, and use.
Read the material in its original form
Business work arrives as a mixture of exports, proposals, scanned pages, and presentation decks. Proto can read common formats directly, so a task can begin with the files you already have. Its native readers extract text and structure; visual inspection helps when layout or a scanned page carries meaning.
| Source | What Proto can read |
|---|---|
| Page text, with visual previews for scanned or layout-sensitive material | |
| Word | Headings, paragraphs, lists, and tables from DOCX files |
| Excel | Visible sheets, cell values, stored formula results, and formula text from XLSX files |
| PowerPoint | Slide text and speaker notes from PPTX files |
| Images | Visual content and readable text |
| Text and exports | CSV, JSON, XML, HTML, Markdown, and plain text |
| Other containers | EPUB text and a safe inventory of ZIP contents with bounded text previews |
Native extraction does not run embedded macros or scripts. It also does not reproduce every page’s layout. Older binary Office formats such as DOC, XLS, and PPT need conversion to modern formats or an explicitly chosen route through an installed application.
Ask for a result that preserves the working
A useful analysis connects its conclusions to the source. Give Proto the business meaning of columns, the reporting period, and the matching rule between files. An invoice number may be unique within one supplier and duplicated across the full export; that distinction changes the result of a comparison.
Compare the invoice workbook with these purchase-order PDFs. Match on supplier and order number, keep the original amounts and currencies, and flag missing or ambiguous matches. Create an exception workbook with source references and a short review note. Keep the source files unchanged.
For a workbook, request separate source, calculation, and summary sheets when the task warrants them. Keep identifiers as identifiers and financial values as numbers. Ask for the assumptions behind derived measures so another person can change them without rebuilding the entire analysis.
Create an editable deliverable
Proto can create and edit Word documents, Excel workbooks, PowerPoint presentations, and PDFs. A briefing document can become a presentation; a reconciled workbook can support a written recommendation. Give the output an audience and purpose so each artifact uses the same evidence at the right level of detail.
Saved output paths matter. Confirm that the requested file exists, opens in its intended application, and contains the working you need. For a presentation or PDF, review the rendered pages as well as the text. For a spreadsheet, inspect formulas, units, date handling, and several representative rows.
Know what extraction has not proved
Reading a spreadsheet’s stored formula results does not recalculate its formulas. Those results may be stale. A scanned document may contain ambiguous characters, and a visually prominent total may differ from a subtotal extracted from its table. Password protection, corruption, or extraction limits may prevent a file from being read fully.
Ask Proto to report those gaps. Before relying on a consequential figure, reconcile it against the source and confirm the calculation. Source content used in reasoning can be sent to the selected model service; local file storage is not a promise that all processing remains on the device.