How to Use Claude's New File Builder to Create Excel, Word, PowerPoint, and PDFs

What if your chat could hand you a finished spreadsheet, a client-ready deck, or a polished PDF without you needing to copy-paste content from one place to another? Well, now you can with the latest Claude AI feature called upgraded file creation and analysis. Anthropic has added the ability to create and edit Excel spreadsheets, Word documents, PowerPoint presentations, and PDF files directly inside Claude AI on the web and desktop, so you can describe the output you want and download the finished artifact in minutes. The feature is rolling out as a preview for Max, Team, and Enterprise, with Pro to follow.

Instead of generating text responses or an on-screen artifact, Claude AI now creates actual files you can open, share, and edit. It's built on a private, sandboxed computing environment that lets Claude write code and run programs to generate analyses and outputs, reducing the gap between idea and deliverable.

Benefits of this new upgraded file creation and analysis:

• Ship deliverables faster: You can go from "draft a budget tracker" to a working .xlsx with formulas and charts.
• Reduce tool-switching: You can use this feature to convert PDF → slides, notes → document, or CSV → analysis → deck, all in one thread and downloadable or savable to Google Drive.
• Work safely with visibility: Your tasks run in a sandbox with limited internet access and user-controlled toggles.
• Data work built in: You can perform data cleaning, analysis, visualization, and even Python-based data science in the sandbox.

Step-by-step: How to create your first file in Claude

Step 1: Enable the preview

In Claude, go to Settings → Features and toggle "Upgraded file creation and analysis." (Enterprise admins may need to enable it at the org level first; Team is on by default, but members still opt-in.)

Step 2: Describe the deliverable

In chat, be explicit about structure, sections, and formatting. '

Prompt example: Create an Excel monthly budget with income/expense categories, totals, and a chart; use separate sheets for raw entries and a dashboard.

Step 3: Provide inputs (optional)

Upload CSV/TSV, PDFs, or notes. Ask Claude to extract, clean, and summarize before creating the final file (e.g., "pull tables from this PDF into Excel and add a summary chart").

Step 4: Review and refine

Request edits: "add conditional formatting," "rename sheets," "insert a pivot," or "tighten slide titles to under 8 words." Claude will regenerate the file accordingly.

Step 5: Export and share

Click to download the .xlsx/.docx/.pptx/PDF or save to Google Drive right from the conversation.

Pro tips & safeguards

• Start simple, then scale: Try a one-page report or small tracker before moving to financial models with scenarios.
• Stay within limits: Keep files under 30 MB; break huge datasets into chunks for better results.
• Mind the sandbox: File creation runs in a sandbox with (limited) internet access so Claude can fetch packages; watch the action summaries and stop if behavior looks off. Admins can control availability.
• As of right now, desktop/web are the best options for creating files, and the mobile version is currently limited to creation tasks.

In Conclusion:

Claude's new file-creation preview can turn a good conversation with the generative AI tool into a finished asset. You can now just specify the outcome you need and download the result; it doesn't matter whether you need a clean spreadsheet, a client-ready deck, or a concise PDF summary; it's all available in one place. Flip the toggle and turn on this new feature, describe what "done" looks like, and let Claude AI do the busywork while you focus on the decisions that matter.