Needs reviewLast verified August 12, 2026
Anthropic announced on September 9, 2025 that Claude can now create and edit real files directly in a conversation, including Excel spreadsheets, Word documents, PowerPoint presentations, and PDFs. Instead of copying Claude's text output into your own tools and formatting it yourself, you describe what you need and Claude produces a finished, downloadable file. The feature rolled out first as a preview for Claude Max, Team, and Enterprise plans, with Pro access to follow, and it needs to be switched on in your settings under file creation. Practical uses include turning raw data into a formatted spreadsheet with formulas, converting notes into a slide deck, drafting formatted reports, and converting between file types, such as turning a PDF into an editable document. Anthropic's release notes describe it as a way to eliminate hours of routine formatting and document busy work.
Until this update, Claude's output mostly lived inside the chat window. It could write excellent text, tables, and analysis, but getting that work into a usable format — a spreadsheet your finance team can open, a slide deck for Monday's meeting — was your job. You copied, pasted, formatted, and fixed.
According to Anthropic's release notes dated September 9, 2025, Claude can now do that last mile itself. It can create and edit files you can download and use immediately, including:
It also works in the other direction: you can upload a file and ask Claude to edit it, restructure it, or convert it to another format — for example, turning a PDF into an editable document or raw data into a formatted spreadsheet.
Behind the scenes, Claude does this by working in a private computing environment where it can write and run the code needed to produce the file. You don't see or touch any of that; you just describe what you want and receive the finished file.
Availability: the feature launched as a preview for Max, Team, and Enterprise plans, with Pro users slated to get access afterward. It is not on by default — you enable it in settings (look for the file creation option under experimental or feature settings).
One practical note from Anthropic's documentation: because Claude gains internet access in this environment to do its work, Anthropic recommends monitoring Claude while using the feature and being thoughtful about the data you share, particularly sensitive company information.
Here's a simple path from "never used it" to "saved an afternoon":
This is a preview feature, and complex documents may need a round or two of revisions. Heavily designed slide decks with strict brand templates, or spreadsheets with intricate existing macros, may still require manual polish. The sweet spot is structured, repetitive document work — the kind Anthropic's own title describes as "busy work."
Source: Anthropic's release notes and support documentation, September 9, 2025. This site is independent and not affiliated with or endorsed by Anthropic.
claudedetails.com is an independent publication and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Anthropic. "Claude" is a trademark of Anthropic, PBC, used here for identification purposes only. Product details can change — always confirm specifics on Anthropic's own site before making decisions based on this post.
Claude can create and edit Excel spreadsheets (.xlsx), Word documents (.docx), PowerPoint presentations (.pptx), and PDFs directly in a conversation. Spreadsheets can include working formulas, not just pasted values, and Claude can also convert between formats — for example, turning a PDF into an editable document.
At launch on September 9, 2025, the feature was released as a preview for Claude Max, Team, and Enterprise plans, with Anthropic stating that Pro users would get access afterward. It also has to be manually enabled in your settings — it is not switched on by default.
Open Settings in Claude.ai or the Claude desktop app and enable the file creation option, which appears under the feature or experimental settings section depending on your plan. Once enabled, you can ask Claude to produce a file in a normal chat and download the result when it's done.
Anthropic notes that this feature gives Claude internet access within its working environment, and recommends monitoring Claude while it works and being careful about sharing sensitive information. A sensible approach is to start with non-confidential data, check your organization's data policies, and review any output file before distributing it.
Anthropic has published guidance on importing and exporting your memory from Claude, meaning the information Claude remembers about you is no longer locked inside the product — you can take a copy out or bring memory in. If you use Claude's memory feature, check Anthropic's support article for the exact steps; the release note itself doesn't include them.
Read more →If your organization is on a Claude Team plan with monthly billing, you can now switch that same plan to annual billing without waiting or contacting sales through a new process. This only applies to Team plan organizations currently billed monthly. If you're on a different plan, or already on annual billing, nothing changes for you. Anthropic published a support guide walking through the switch.
Read more →On August 12, 2025, Anthropic announced that Claude Sonnet 4 now supports a 1 million token context window, currently in beta. The context window is the amount of text Claude can consider at once, and 1 million tokens is roughly 750,000 words, or several long books. This is a large jump from the standard 200,000 token window. For now, access is limited to API organizations in usage tier 4 or those with custom rate limits, meaning it is aimed at teams building on Claude's API rather than everyday users of the Claude.ai app. If your company works with Claude through the API, this means you can now feed in much larger document sets, contracts, transcripts, or knowledge bases in a single request instead of splitting them up.
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