Gemini users can now make changes to files from inside a chat instead of leaving the app to edit them elsewhere. The feature covers documents, spreadsheets, slide decks and several text and code formats, with different availability across web and mobile.
What Gemini can do with files
Users can generate, preview and edit PDFs, Google Docs, Google Sheets, slide decks, Markdown files, TXT files and code directly in Gemini. Google had already added file generation and downloads earlier this year; the new step is bringing editing into the same conversation.
That makes a chat a place to work with a file after it has been created. A user can open a document in full-screen mode, select text and then ask Gemini a question about that passage or request a change.
How editing works
The selection-based workflow lets users focus a prompt on a particular part of a file. For example, Google says someone can highlight a table and ask Gemini to turn it into a graph. The selected content gives the request a specific target within the document.
Gemini also supports expanding documents into a full-screen view for editing. Taken together, these controls allow users to inspect a file and direct changes from within the chat, rather than having to move between the conversation and another editing screen.
Web and mobile availability
The file editing capabilities are available to all Gemini users starting today. PDF previews and editing work on both the web and mobile versions, but the other listed formats are available only on the web for now.
That distinction matters for people who use Gemini across devices. A PDF can be reviewed and edited on a phone, while editing a Google Doc, spreadsheet, slide deck, Markdown file, TXT file or code requires the web version at this point.
A broader role for chat-based assistants
Gemini already offered file generation and downloads, and it could edit files through integrations in Google Workspace apps, including the Gemini bar in Google Docs. The new feature brings file creation and revision into a more direct chat-based workflow.
It also places Gemini alongside another chat assistant with document tools: Anthropic launched a feature earlier this year for generating and editing documents and presentations in Claude chats. The shared idea is to let users work on files through a conversation, while Gemini’s new capability spans several formats and gives PDF users access on mobile as well as the web.
For Gemini users, the practical change is fewer steps between asking for a file and refining it. The feature keeps the prompts, selected text and document in one place, although format support depends on whether the user is on web or mobile.