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A prompt on its own describes what you want. A reference tells Pretty what to work from. There are three ways to give it one.

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1. Point at the slide

Select shapes in PowerPoint (a text box, a group, a whole slide’s worth) and a badge appears above the composer showing what you have picked: Slide 4 | 3 Items for shapes on one slide, Slide 4 for the slide itself, 2 slides for a multi-slide selection.
Composer with a Slide 4, 3 Items selection badge above it and an arrow pointing at Click to add to Chat

Click the badge to drop the selection into your message. The × dismisses it.

Selecting first is the cheapest way to be precise. “Make these tighter” with three shapes selected beats a paragraph describing which three shapes you meant.
The selection is read fresh each time you send, so you can reselect between messages and keep working without re-explaining.

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2. Attach files

Click + in the composer (“Add files”) or use Upload files. You can also drag files straight onto the pane; it lights up with “Drop to reference in chat”.
Attachment chips for a photo, PDF, CSV, XLSX, DOCX, PPTX, Markdown and ZIP file

Every file type the picker accepts. Images come in as a thumbnail; everything else carries its format.

The picker accepts images, .pdf, .csv, .xls, .xlsx, .doc, .docx, .ppt, .pptx, .md, .markdown and .zip. How Pretty reads what you give it:
A .pptx is not read as a file. To make a deck’s slides reusable, upload it as a slide pool instead. That turns its slides into a searchable library Pretty can pull layouts from.
Long files are read in windows rather than all at once, so pointing at the part you care about (“the pricing table on page 4”) gets you a better answer than “read this”.

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3. Drop in assets

Some references are objects rather than files, and they arrive in the composer as badges.

Assets

Search icons, logos, maps and photos in the Assets tab and click Add to chat. The badge names the exact icon or company, so Pretty places the one you picked rather than searching again.

Slide pool layouts

A slide in a pool has Add to chat too. Referencing a layout is how you say “build it like this one” without describing the layout.
You can also drag an icon or a logo out of the Assets tab and drop it onto the composer, and drag a file from the workspace tree to reference the file or the folder.