Which format to ask for

There are dozens of different extensions, but you already know that underneath there are two classes of file. Now the part you will use every day: what to ask the AI for, depending on what you are working with.

Quick translation. The programs you have been using all your life, and which side they fall on:

• Notepad saves .txt — text. Done: it is the simplest case there is.
• Word saves .docx — binary. Write in .md, which is the same thing with headings and bold, and export to Word at the end if you need to.
• Excel saves .xlsx — binary. Ask for .csv: Excel opens it just the same, on a double click, and it is text.
• The PDF reader — binary. Convert it to .md once and work there. You go back to PDF at the end.
• The phone camera saves .jpg — binary. The image stays as it is; what you work on is whatever gets extracted from it.
• Paint, Photoshop, Canva save .png — binary. For something you will edit often, build it in .html instead.

The three web ones, in one sentence each. They go together and split the work like a house:

• HTML is the walls and the rooms — what is there and in what order.
• CSS is the paint and the furniture — what color, what size, where each thing goes.
• JS is the switches and the taps — what happens when somebody touches something.

For a flyer you will need the first two and almost never the third.

The question worth asking before starting any piece of work:

is this thing in front of me text, or is it a block?

If it is a block, the first move is to convert it.