Attachments & voice
How to attach a Word file, PDF or image to a question, how Edmund reads an image such as an HMI panel photo, and how to dictate a question by voice from the chat composer.
The chat composer is more than a text box. Next to where you type, the paperclip (bottom-left) attaches a file to your question, and the microphone (bottom-right, next to the purple send arrow) lets you dictate instead of typing. Both act on the message you’re about to send.
Attach a file
Use the paperclip to upload a file straight into the chat — a Word document, a PDF or an image. Edmund can then work with it as part of the answer.
Images are the most useful case on the floor. Edmund reads the important information out of a picture and uses it in the reply, so a photo of an HMI panel showing an error message often gets you further than describing the fault in words.
When you photograph a panel or a label, make sure the error code or text is in focus and readable. Edmund can only use what it can make out in the image.
Dictate your question
Prefer talking to typing? Tap the microphone and speak your question. Dictation works on both a laptop and a phone, so it’s there whether you’re at a desk or out at the machine.
Tap the microphone at the bottom-right of the text box. Edmund starts recording.
Speak your question. Edmund converts your speech to text and drops it into the input.
Read the text back, fix anything that came out wrong, then send it with the purple arrow.
Because you check and edit the text before sending, dictation is quick without being risky — it just saves the typing. It helps most out in the plant, where operators often don’t have time to type a question by hand.
Say fault and alarm codes slowly, and check them against the panel before you send. A mistyped code sends Edmund looking for the wrong thing.
A chat file isn’t a project Document
Attaching a file in chat is not the same as uploading a Document to the project. A chat attachment travels with the one question you’re asking. A Document is added to the project’s knowledge, indexed, and available to everyone for later answers. If a manual, drawing or report should help future questions, add it as a Document — see Documents & PLC programs.
For how to read the reply you get back, see Reading answers & citations.