Module 3 · Files, tools and your own data Lesson 8 of 15
Files, tables and long documents
Uploading a PDF, a spreadsheet or a screenshot and asking questions about it: Copilot reads the file you have open and, on a work licence, the files you have access to across SharePoint and OneDrive. This is where these tools stop being a chat and start being work, and where the failure modes are worth knowing.
The concept
Copilot reads the file you have open and, on a work licence, the files you have access to across SharePoint and OneDrive. The two failures to expect are the ones nobody warns you about: a long document is summarised as it is read, so a detail on page 60 can be missed; and a table with merged cells or a scanned page is likely to be read wrongly.
So the working method is: ask narrow questions, and ask the tool to quote the line it is answering from. "From the attached file only, what does clause 4.2 let me do? Quote the sentence." If it cannot quote it, it did not read it.
Common mistakes
For a spreadsheet, ask for the formula and an explanation instead of the computed column — ask for the formula in the sheet you are looking at, with a note on what breaks on an empty cell — then you can fix it yourself next month when the columns change.
Worked example
On a spreadsheet it can build a pivot, add a column with a formula, and explain what it changed — always check the change on the real rows before you rely on it.
Your practice task
Upload one real document you already own — a syllabus, a marksheet, a project report — and ask three questions whose answers you already know. When it gets one wrong, read the passage it quoted before you blame the file.
Do this before moving on. Reading a solution teaches the shape of it; typing it teaches you.
Key takeaway
Copilot reads the file you have open and, on a work licence, the files you have access to across SharePoint and OneDrive.
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