AI-Generated PDF Reports from Excel – How-To & SOP

TL;DR: Upload the .xlsx (as attachment, or place it in /home/user/Documents/inbox) → tell the AI in one clear message what to build and where to save it → let it read and summarize the file first → review the generated PDF page by page → iterate with short fix requests → clean up temp files when done. One project per chat, delete chats you no longer need.

The AI assistant runs in a Linux environment and can turn a raw Excel export into a finished, presentation-ready A4 PDF report without any manual layout work: cover page, KPI dashboard, charts, formatted tables, status badges, page footers with page numbers – in the language of the data (German or English). It works best when the Excel file contains structured lists with status columns, areas, quantities or references.

The standard pipeline: read → understand → summarize → build charts → build HTML report → render PDF → verify pages → iterate on feedback.

* The Excel file (.xlsx), ideally one sheet per topic * A fixed output folder and filename, e.g. /home/user/Documents/generatedpdf/<name>.pdf * A decision: report language (data in German → report in German) * Optional: brand colors or a logo image you want on the cover

- Step 1 – Upload the file. Attach the .xlsx to the chat. If the AI reports it cannot find the file on disk, copy it into /home/user/Documents/inbox (this actually happened in Case Study B and cost one round trip). - Step 2 – Send the initial prompt (Section 5, Prompt A or B). Always include: what to do + exact target folder + filename. - Step 3 – Let it read first. The AI dumps the workbook structure, identifies sections/statuses/counts and summarizes them back to you. Check that summary – correcting understanding here is much cheaper than correcting a finished PDF. - Step 4 – Generation. Charts are generated, the report is laid out (cover, dashboard, sections, detail tables, open items), and the PDF is rendered into your target folder. - Step 5 – Page-by-page review. The AI renders pages to images and shows you key pages (cover, summary, charts, tables, final page). Look at: totals, spellings, colors, missing rows. - Step 6 – Iterate with short fix prompts (Section 5, Prompt C). Typical fixes: wrong total in a chart, typo, extra section, color change, logo. - Step 7 – Handover & cleanup. Confirm the file location, then ask the AI to delete its temporary files (Section 5, Prompt D).

Prompt A – initial request, new report:

Read the attached Excel file "NAME_OF_FILE.xlsx". It is written in German.
Before building anything, summarize what you understand: sheets, key columns,
statuses, and all relevant counts – I will confirm before you proceed.
Then create a professional customer-presentation PDF based on it with:
cover page with key numbers, summary dashboard with KPI cards, charts,
clean detail tables, status badges, and a footer with page numbers.
Save the result to: /home/user/Documents/generatedpdf/REPORTNAME.pdf

Prompt B – new file, same style as before:

I uploaded a new Excel file "NAME_OF_FILE.xlsx". Read it and understand the content first.
Create a professional PDF report (same style as the last one: cover, KPI dashboard,
charts, tables, open-items section with recommended actions).
Save it to /home/user/Documents/generatedpdf/ with exactly the same name as the Excel file.

Prompt C – fixes / iterations (one issue per message works best):

Page 3, chart "Kameras nach Bereich": the numbers do not add up to the total (342).
Fix the chart so all categories are included and re-render the PDF.

Change the accent color on the cover to #1a5d9e and shorten the subtitle text.

Add our company logo (attached) to the top-left of the cover page.

Prompt D – cleanup after handover:

The report is final. Delete all temporary files you created for it (chart images,
HTML, scripts, page previews) and confirm that only the final PDF remains in
/home/user/Documents/generatedpdf.

* Cover page: title, subtitle, 3–4 KPI chips, date + document meta * Dashboard: big number cards + one status donut chart * Charts must sum to the total row count – always verify (real bug caught in Case Study B) * Status colors stay consistent with the source legend; use badges/pills for table statuses * Page footer with report name and “Seite x von y” * Source reference at the end: document name, sheet, export date/time, author * One coherent palette (navy + one accent color worked well here)

WARNING: Every message, attachment and tool output inside a chat eats into the shared context window of that chat. A long-running chat with several big Excel files, many page previews and repeated regenerations will eventually hit the limit: responses get slower, older instructions are forgotten, and new uploads may not fit at all. Manage this before it happens:

* One project per chat. Start a fresh chat for every new Excel/report. Do not continue an old 20-message chat with a completely new file. * Delete chats you no longer need (you do this in the app UI – the AI cannot delete your own chat history). Unused chats are a wasted resource and clutter. * Clean up generated temp files after handover. Ask the AI (Prompt D) to remove chart PNGs, HTML and page previews it created. Do not let 10+ preview images and intermediate files accumulate in the working folder or get re-read into the chat later. * Attach each file only once per project. Re-uploading a slightly edited version of the same big Excel is one of the fastest ways to blow up the context. If the data changed significantly, prefer a new chat. * Keep the Excel slim: delete unused sheets/hidden columns before uploading if you can – the AI reads the whole workbook. * State your target once, precisely (absolute folder + exact filename) in the first prompt; vague requests cause extra rounds of back-and-forth, and every round costs context. * Overwrite the same output file instead of producing v1/v2/v3 copies. * If a chat starts to feel heavy (slow answers, forgotten instructions), stop iterating and hand over: ask the AI for a short state summary, then continue in a new chat with something like:

State summary for continuation:
Project: camera network report. Source: Kamera Netzwerkliste.xlsx.
Output: /home/user/Documents/generatedpdf/Kamera Netzwerkliste.pdf (22 pages, final except cover logo).
Next step: add our company logo to the cover page only.

* Do not paste huge text dumps (full console output, entire HTML) into the chat. If something went wrong, describe the symptom in 1–2 sentences and point at the file/page – let the AI read the file itself.

Author: <your name> · Version 1.0 · 2026-10-12 • Internal SOP – AI-generated PDF reports from Excel