> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.chatref.ai/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Training with Files

> Upload documents like PDFs and spreadsheets so your bot can answer from them.

Have your answers in documents already? Upload them and Chatref reads the text,
so your bot can answer from it. This is great for manuals, price lists, and
policies you keep as files.

## Supported file types

Upload any of these:

| Type         | Formats             |
| ------------ | ------------------- |
| Documents    | `.pdf` `.docx`      |
| Spreadsheets | `.csv` `.xlsx`      |
| Text         | `.txt` `.md` `.mdx` |

Each file can be up to **50 MB**. If a document is larger, split it into smaller
files before uploading.

## How to upload files

<Steps>
  <Step title="Open the Sources tab">
    Open your agent and go to the **Sources** tab.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Choose Upload Files">
    From the add menu, pick **Upload Files**.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Select your files">
    Drag your documents in, or click to browse. You can add several at once.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Wait for training">
    Each file is queued and read in the background. Watch the status until it
    shows **Trained**.
  </Step>
</Steps>

## When to use it

File training fits content you keep as documents:

* **A coffee store** – upload a wholesale price list spreadsheet.
* **A SaaS app** – upload your onboarding manual as a PDF.
* **A dental clinic** – upload your new-patient and insurance policies.

<Tip>
  Text-based PDFs work best. A PDF that is really a scanned image of text (like a
  photo of a printed page) may not extract – if you can highlight the words in the
  file, your bot can read them too. If a scan won't train, retype the key parts as
  a [Text source](/knowledge-base/training-with-text) instead.
</Tip>

## Next steps

<CardGroup cols={2}>
  <Card title="Add a website" icon="globe" href="/knowledge-base/training-with-websites">
    Crawl your site instead of uploading every page.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Add text" icon="text" href="/knowledge-base/training-with-text">
    Paste a quick answer that isn't in a file.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Track training" icon="bolt" href="/knowledge-base/training-status">
    See when each file finishes and retry any that fail.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Test your bot" icon="robot" href="/agents/playground">
    Ask about something in your uploaded files.
  </Card>
</CardGroup>