How It Works
When you upload an Excel file, it goes through a specialized conversion and chunking path before joining the shared enrichment and embedding pipeline:Content Block to Chunk Mapping
Each block detected in the spreadsheet maps to a specific chunk type:
Important: Tables are always kept as single chunks and never split across multiple chunks. This preserves structural integrity for AI reasoning over tabular data.
Enriched HTML for Tables
Every TABLE chunk carries an enriched HTML representation that preserves formulas and cell formatting lost in the plain-text version. This enriched HTML is stored as metadata on the chunk.Preserved Cell Attributes
Auto-Generated Table Titles
Every TABLE chunk gets a human-readable title generated by the LLM enrichment step:- The LLM receives the enriched HTML plus surrounding context
- It generates a concise title (max 10 words) describing what the table contains
- The title is stored as a
<caption>in the enriched HTML and as metadata on the chunk
Chart Support
Charts extracted from Excel files are represented as IMAGE chunks with structured text describing the chart:Image and Shape Handling
Embedded images and shapes from Excel files are also extracted:- Images become IMAGE chunks with alt text. The original image is extracted from the file and uploaded to storage as WEBP. LLM enrichment later generates a full description.
- Text boxes become TEXT chunks with the text box content.
Section Structure
Each Excel sheet becomes a section in the document hierarchy, analogous to a heading in a PDF. This means:- You can browse a workbook sheet-by-sheet using the standard document navigation
- Each sheet’s content is organized under its own section
- The agent can read individual sheets or search across all sheets