AI assistants answer better from well-prepared documents. Preparation is often the biggest lever on RAG quality.
Extract Text Reliably
- Use parsers that preserve reading order, headings and tables.
- Apply OCR for scanned documents, and check quality.
- Convert tables into structured formats rather than jumbled text.
Keep Structure
Headings, sections and lists help both chunking and retrieval. Markdown is a convenient target format.
Add Metadata
Title, author, date, version, department, access permissions and source URL.
Remove Clutter
Repeated headers and footers, page numbers and boilerplate add noise.
Resolve Duplicates and Versions
Multiple versions of a policy confuse assistants. Keep the current version and mark or remove outdated ones.
Fill Gaps
If assistants can't answer common questions, the answer may not be written down anywhere. Write it.
Images and Diagrams
Add descriptions, or use multimodal processing, for content that exists only in images.
Keep It Current
Automate re-ingestion when documents change.