# Artifacts & documents

## Opening documents

Click any source or artifact in the sidebar and it opens right in the main
area — not in a separate app. This is deliberate: switching to your PDF reader
or Word breaks the thread between the document and the chat you're reading it
from. A file Axon can't display shows you its path instead, with **Open
externally** to open it in its own application.

The viewer's **More actions** menu (**⋮**, top right) has what else you can
do with the open document: **Edit**, the exports below and **Open
externally** — and, for a source, **Chunks** (the passages Axon indexed from
it) and **History** (how it changed over time).

## Artifacts

An artifact is something Axon produced — a report, a document, a deck, a saved
conversation — rather than something you added. Artifacts are listed in the
sidebar's **ARTIFACTS** section, filed under the project they came from.

- **Ask for a file and you get one.** Ask for a report, a Word document,
  slides or a PowerPoint deck, and Axon saves it straight into the project's
  Artifacts — an HTML page by default or for a report, `.docx` for Word, an
  HTML deck for slides, `.pptx` for PowerPoint — instead of pasting it into
  the chat.
- **Keep a conversation.** From the chat's **More options** menu (**⋮**, top
  right of the chat), **Add to artifacts** saves the conversation as an
  artifact you can reopen, edit or export later. See [How to: Save a chat
  answer as an artifact](https://exaflux.io/docs/axon/how-to/save-a-chat-answer-as-an-artifact).
- **Start a blank one.** The **New file** icon on the **ARTIFACTS** heading
  (shown when the pointer is over it) creates an empty file to write in.

Answers don't cite artifacts until you make them sources. Each artifact's
**⋮** menu in the sidebar — shown when the pointer is over its row — has
**Add to sources**, which copies it into the
project's folder and indexes it like any file you added yourself. See [How
to: Make an artifact citable](https://exaflux.io/docs/axon/how-to/make-an-artifact-citable).

## Editing

A Markdown or text file opens ready to edit — there's no **Edit** step to
find first. Formatting renders as you type and collapses to hidden Markdown
wherever your cursor isn't, the way Obsidian's live preview does; move your
cursor onto a heading, a bold word, or a link and the raw symbols reappear so
you can change them:

![The Markdown editor: a heading rendered, with the raw ## showing on the heading where the cursor is](https://exaflux.io/docs/axon/screenshots/markdown-editor-live-preview.png)

Click a link to follow it — a link to another page in the project opens that
page here, and a web link opens in your browser. To edit a link instead, move
the cursor into it with the arrow keys.

**Save** writes your changes back without leaving the editor; **Cancel**
discards them — asking first if there are unsaved changes — and shows the
document as rendered, where **More actions → Edit** reopens the editor.
Editing a source updates what future answers retrieve from it, the same as
editing the underlying file would.

See [How to: Write and format Markdown](https://exaflux.io/docs/axon/how-to/write-and-format-markdown)
for the shortcuts.

## Exporting

Exports are under the viewer's **More actions** menu:

- **Export to Word** is offered for a web page or a Markdown document, and
  produces a real `.docx` — headings, tables and diagrams come across as
  actual Word structure (merged cells, styled headings, embedded images), not
  a flat dump of text. Diagrams are rendered as images at export time,
  matched to their place in the document.
- **Export to PDF** is offered for an audit record. A record is a statement
  about a moment, which is why Axon won't let anyone edit one — so it's
  offered as a file that gets filed, not one that invites revision.

An audit record itself comes from a chat: **Save audit record** in the chat's
**More options** menu saves the full record of the conversation — what was
asked, what was retrieved, what was said — into Artifacts. See [Search &
citations](https://exaflux.io/docs/axon/search-and-citations) for what's in it.

An export is saved as a new file in the project's **Artifacts**, beside what
it came from. It never overwrites an earlier export.

## Branded documents (Pro)

With Pro, the documents you hand to a client carry your firm's letterhead.
Set it up once under **Settings → Branding** — a logo, your firm's name, an
accent colour and a footer line, such as "Confidential — prepared for the
client":

| File | What it carries |
|---|---|
| Word | Logo and firm name in the header, headings in your accent colour, and the footer line with a page number on every page |
| PDF | Logo and firm name at the top, headings in your accent colour, and the footer line at the end |
| PowerPoint | Logo top-right and the firm and footer line bottom-left on every slide, with titles in your accent colour |
| Excel | Table header rows in your accent colour; when printed, the logo and firm at the top of every page and the footer line with page numbers at the bottom |

It applies to exports from the viewer and to the Word, PowerPoint and Excel
files the assistant writes for you. Without Pro the same documents are made
without the letterhead — nothing else about them changes. A file made before
you set up branding keeps the look it had; export it again to brand it.

See [How to: Brand your exported documents](https://exaflux.io/docs/axon/how-to/brand-your-exported-documents).