Document Creation Best Practices

1. Focus on Essential Content

1.1 Define Clear Objectives

• List key questions or points the document should address.
• Prune unrelated material to avoid retrieval noise.

1.2 Structured Authoring

• Use Concise Sections: Label sections (e.g. ## Overview, ## Key Findings) and keep them to 300–800 words each.
• Semantic Headings: Descriptive headings (e.g. ## Q1 Sales Performance) help retrieval engines surface the right chunks.
• Summaries & Highlights: Start sections with a one-paragraph summary and bullet points of critical insights.

1.3 Curated Inserts

• Tables & Charts: Embed only summarized tables (≤10 rows) with captions.
• Key-Value Pairs: Use key: value for vital parameters (e.g. QPS_limit: 1000).
• Callouts: Use blockquotes or markdown alerts (> **Warning:** ...) to highlight priority items.

1.4 Avoid Retrieval Traps

• Don’t rely on hidden text (comments, collapsibles) that extractors may skip.
• Limit code snippets to relevant sections; link to full repos if needed.
• Clean formatting: remove excessive whitespace, unsupported fonts, or embedded objects.

2. Minimize Historical Noise

• Prune Obsolete Background: Summarize past events in 1–2 sentences with links to archives.
• Version Indicators: Mark versioned sections (e.g. ### v2.0 Change Log) to target the latest content.
• Avoid Redundancy: Extract only actionable decisions from meeting minutes or log dumps.

3. Pre-Upload & Batch Preparation

3.1 Supported Formats

• Born-Digital (preferred): PDF (text-embedded), DOCX, PPTX, HTML, TXT
• Scanned: Image-based PDFs, JPEG, PNG, TIFF (when necessary)

Tip: Generate PDFs at ≥300 DPI; avoid pure scans when possible.

3.2 File Naming & Manifests

• Consistent Filenames: project_section_v{version}_{YYYYMMDD}.ext (e.g. Invoice_Payment_v2_20250521.pdf).
• Batch Manifest: Maintain a CSV/JSON manifest with filename, checksum (SHA256), and metadata. Example:

3.3 File Size & Splitting

• Target Size: 1–10 MB per document; split >50 MB into logical parts (Chapter1.pdf, etc.).
• Chunk & Size Optimization: Ensure each part aligns with your chunking strategy (≈2 000–4 000 chars or 500–1 000 tokens).

4. Document Creation Quality Checks

1. Chunk Simulation: Pre-chunk draft and review that each chunk is self-contained and relevant.
2. Search Testing: Run sample queries to verify expected sections surface correctly.
3. Peer Review: Have colleagues test retrieval accuracy and flag noise.

5) Maintenance & Cleanup

• Archive Originals: Store raw documents and manifests in cold storage (e.g. AWS Glacier).
• Version Retention: Keep the latest N versions; archive or delete older versions.

By combining document-focused authoring techniques with batch-optimized workflows—manifests, sized splits, and robust validation—you’ll ensure scalable ingestion, precise retrieval, and no lost documents in OpenWebUI.