Files, Sources and Checking - Claude Cheat Sheet

What Claude actually sees inside a file, and how to work with documents, images and messy data. Then the checking habit: quoting sources, spotting a made-up answer, the four checks, and triaging claims by what being wrong would cost.

On the sheet:

- What Claude sees inside your file: fully seen, text only, or not seen at all

- Hand it over: the file types you can add, and the limits

- Ask a document you have not read: sharp numbered questions beat a summary

- The quote habit: make Claude quote the file, then spot-check it

- Photos and screenshots: Claude reads an image, and the screenshot fix

- What never to upload: passwords, private data, anything confidential

- Plain, search or research: choosing the right mode for the question

- Sources and citations: a citation is a link to open, not a quality mark

- What a wrong answer looks like: the shapes a made-up answer takes

- The four checks: quote, open, redo, grade

- Triage: what to check, and how hard, by cost of being wrong

Two A4 pages, printed front and back, sized to print once and keep beside you while you work. Written in short sentences and plain English, for readers whose first language is not English and clearer for everyone else because of it.

It pairs with the Working With Your Files and Check Before You Trust books, so you can learn each idea in full and then revise it here in two pages.

Every product fact on this sheet - every plan, price, limit, setting and menu - was checked against Anthropic's own published documentation before the file was made. This is an independent study guide, not affiliated with, authorised by, or endorsed by Anthropic. Instant PDF download. By M.R. Sterling.