---
doc_version: "1.0.0"
last_updated: "2026-07-14T15:00:57.718Z"
title: "Source Types Reference"
description: "All knowledge source types supported by ChatbotIQ (websites, PDFs, Q&A pairs, spreadsheets, and OpenAPI specs) with details on how each works."
keywords: [source types, website, PDF, Q&A, spreadsheet, OpenAPI, knowledge base, ChatbotIQ]
---

ChatbotIQ supports multiple types of knowledge sources. You can mix and match: a single bot can draw from websites, PDFs, and manual Q&A entries at the same time.

---

## Website

| | |
|---|---|
| **What it is** | A website URL that ChatbotIQ crawls to extract content. |
| **How to add** | Enter the base URL in the Source Wizard. ChatbotIQ discovers pages automatically. |
| **What gets indexed** | Text content from each page, optionally including images. Navigation, footers, and other UI elements can be stripped with Reader Mode. |
| **Crawling modes** | Standard (sitemap-based) or Advanced (link-following). See [Configure Crawling](/how-to/configure-crawling-for-your-site/). |
| **Best for** | Documentation sites, help centers, blogs, wikis, product pages. |
| **Limitations** | Pages behind login walls can't be accessed. Very large sites may need plan upgrades for page limits. |

---

## PDF

| | |
|---|---|
| **What it is** | Uploaded PDF documents. |
| **How to add** | Click "+ Add Source", choose PDF, and upload one or more files. |
| **What gets indexed** | Extracted text from each page of the PDF. Each PDF page becomes one indexed page. |
| **Best for** | Product manuals, whitepapers, policy documents, reports. |
| **Limitations** | Scanned PDFs (images without OCR text) may have limited or no extractable content. |

---

## Q&A (Manual entries)

| | |
|---|---|
| **What it is** | Manually created question-and-answer pairs. |
| **How to add** | Click "+ Add Source", choose Q&A, then type in questions and answers. You can also bulk import from CSV or JSON. |
| **What gets indexed** | Each Q&A pair as a single unit. The question helps with retrieval; the answer is used in responses. |
| **Best for** | FAQs, specific answers that aren't on your website, corrections to common misunderstandings, filling knowledge gaps. |
| **Limitations** | Manual maintenance required. No automatic updates. |

---

## Spreadsheet

| | |
|---|---|
| **What it is** | CSV or Excel files with structured data. |
| **How to add** | Click "+ Add Source", choose Spreadsheet, and upload your file. |
| **What gets indexed** | Rows are parsed and indexed as content. Column names provide context. |
| **Best for** | Product catalogs, pricing tables, feature comparison matrices, structured data. |
| **Limitations** | Very large spreadsheets may need to be split. Complex formatting is ignored. |

---

## OpenAPI Specification

| | |
|---|---|
| **What it is** | An OpenAPI 3.x YAML or JSON file describing your API. |
| **How to add** | Click "+ Add Source", choose OpenAPI, and upload your spec file. |
| **What gets indexed** | API endpoints, parameters, request/response schemas, and descriptions. |
| **Best for** | API documentation bots that help developers find and understand your endpoints. |
| **Limitations** | Only OpenAPI 3.x format is supported. |

---

## Mixing source types

Each bot can use multiple sources of different types. For example:

- A **customer support bot** might use your website (help center) + Q&A pairs (common questions) + PDFs (product manuals).
- An **API docs bot** might use your website (developer docs) + an OpenAPI spec (endpoint reference).

When a user asks a question, the bot searches across all assigned sources and uses the most relevant content regardless of source type.

---

## Related

- [Add a Website Source](/how-to/add-a-website-source/) - step-by-step for websites
- [Add PDFs and Q&A Sources](/tutorials/add-pdf-and-qa-sources/) - tutorial for non-website sources
- [Configure Crawling](/how-to/configure-crawling-for-your-site/) - crawling settings for websites

## Sitemap

Full documentation index: [sitemap.md](/sitemap.md) and [llms.txt](/llms.txt).