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Creating Documents, Slides, and Spreadsheets ​

Pencel's artifact system supports rich document types — reports, slide decks, and spreadsheets — that your agents can create, edit, and reference. This walkthrough covers the three main ways to produce them: using the creation wizards, asking an agent to do it from chat, and uploading files you already have.

TIP

For stakeholder-facing deliverables where you want the agent to propose an outline before drafting, see the Spec-Driven Documents guide. The wizards below default to a single-pass draft; spec-driven adds outline review and section-by-section editing.

Artifact types at a glance ​

TypeBest for
Document / Report / NoteLong-form writing, reports, meeting notes, proposals
SlidesPresentations, briefings, pitch decks (rendered as Marp markdown)
SpreadsheetStructured tables, trackers, financial models
DraftWork-in-progress writing you are not ready to finalize

All types live in the Artifacts section of the left sidebar and can be opened, edited, and referenced by agents in action mode.

Creating a document ​

Using the Document Wizard ​

The wizard helps you produce a structured document from a prompt in seconds.

  1. Click Artifacts in the sidebar.
  2. Click New and select Document (or Report, Note, etc.).
  3. The document wizard opens. Describe what you want to create:
    • Prompt — Describe the document in plain language. Example: "A two-page project proposal for migrating our analytics infrastructure to BigQuery."
    • Agent — Choose which agent to use for content generation. Pick one whose role aligns with the document type.
  4. Click Generate. The agent drafts the document and opens it in the editor.
  5. Review and edit the draft directly in the editor.

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The more specific your prompt, the better the first draft. Include context like audience, length, tone, and key sections you want covered. Example: "A one-page executive summary for a CFO audience covering Q1 results, three risks, and two recommended actions."

Creating a document from chat ​

You can also ask any agent to create a document during a conversation, without opening the wizard.

  1. Open the chat panel.
  2. Select an agent and switch to Action Mode.
  3. Type a request such as:
    • "Write a project proposal for migrating our data warehouse and save it as an artifact."
    • "Draft a Q1 board update and create a report artifact."
  4. The agent creates the artifact and confirms with a link in the chat. Click the link to open it in the editor.

INFO

When an agent creates an artifact in action mode, you can review the creation in the execution trace below the assistant message. The trace shows the tool call, the generated content, and the artifact ID.

Creating a slide deck ​

Slides in Pencel use Marp — a Markdown-based presentation format. Each slide is separated by --- and supports headers, bullet points, images, and basic styling.

Using the Slide Wizard ​

  1. Click Artifacts in the sidebar.
  2. Click New and select Slides.
  3. In the slide wizard, enter your prompt:
    • Topic — What the presentation is about.
    • Slide count — How many slides you want (5, 10, 15, etc.).
    • Audience — Who you are presenting to.
    • Agent — Which agent should write the content.
  4. Click Generate. The agent produces a Marp markdown deck.
  5. The editor opens in Marp mode. Each --- is a slide boundary.

Editing slides ​

The slide editor works like a regular markdown editor but renders slides in a split preview:

  • Markdown pane (left) — Edit the raw Marp markdown.
  • Preview pane (right) — See the rendered slides in real time.

Common Marp elements you can use:

markdown
---
marp: true
theme: default
---

# Slide Title

- Bullet point one
- Bullet point two

---

## Second Slide

Content here.

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You can ask an agent to edit your slides from chat. Open the slide artifact, then in the chat panel (action mode) say: "Rewrite slide 3 to be shorter and more direct." The agent locates the right slide and applies the edit.

From chat ​

To create slides entirely from chat:

  1. Switch to Action Mode in the chat panel.
  2. Say: "Create a 10-slide pitch deck for a Series A fundraise and save it as a slides artifact."
  3. The agent builds the deck and saves it. Click the link in the chat to open it.

Creating a spreadsheet ​

Using the Spreadsheet Wizard ​

  1. Click Artifacts in the sidebar.
  2. Click New and select Spreadsheet.
  3. In the spreadsheet wizard, describe what you need:
    • Purpose — What the spreadsheet tracks or calculates. Example: "A quarterly budget tracker with revenue, expenses, and margin by department."
    • Columns — Key columns you want, or leave it to the agent.
    • Agent — Which agent to use.
  4. Click Generate. The agent creates the initial structure and populates it with example or real data if you have connected data sources.
  5. The spreadsheet editor opens. You can edit cells directly or ask the agent to fill, reorganize, or extend the data.

From chat ​

  1. Switch to Action Mode.
  2. Say: "Build a content calendar spreadsheet for Q2 with columns for week, topic, owner, channel, and status."
  3. The agent creates the spreadsheet artifact. Open it to review and edit.

Asking an agent to populate data from a connection ​

If you have a connected data source (e.g., PostgreSQL, Airtable, Google Sheets), you can ask the agent to pull data directly into a new spreadsheet:

  1. Make sure the connection is active in Connections.
  2. In chat (action mode): "Query the orders table in our database and create a spreadsheet showing this month's orders by product."
  3. The agent runs the query, formats the results, and saves them as a spreadsheet artifact.

Uploading existing files ​

You do not need to generate everything from scratch. Pencel can import files you already have.

Supported file types ​

FormatHandled as
.pdfDocument (text extracted)
.docxDocument
.xlsxSpreadsheet
.pptxSlides
.htmlDocument

How to upload ​

  1. Click Artifacts in the sidebar.
  2. Click New → Upload File.
  3. Select the file from your filesystem.
  4. Pencel extracts the content, creates the appropriate artifact type, and indexes it for search.

Once uploaded, the artifact is fully searchable by agents and can be referenced in workflows and guidelines just like any artifact you created from scratch.

WARNING

Uploaded files are converted to editable artifacts — changes you make in Pencel do not update the original file on disk. If you update the source file, re-upload it to keep Pencel in sync.

Editing artifacts with an agent ​

One of the most powerful workflows is having an agent edit an existing artifact in response to your instructions.

  1. Open the artifact in the editor (Artifacts section).
  2. Open the chat panel and make sure an agent is selected.
  3. Switch to Action Mode.
  4. Type your instruction:
    • "Shorten the executive summary section to three sentences."
    • "Add a row to the Q2 budget tracker for the new design team headcount."
    • "Revise slide 5 to address the risk of delayed product launch."
  5. The agent applies edits to the open artifact. A diff view shows what changed. Accept or reject the changes.

TIP

The agent can see the artifact that is currently open in your editor. You do not need to describe or paste the content — just reference it naturally in your message.

Next steps ​