Ask Copilot in Word Where a Long Solicitation Says What It Requires

What This Does

A funding announcement saved as a Word file can run to dozens of pages, and the page limits, required sections and budget instructions are rarely in one place. Copilot in Word lets you ask questions about the open document and get an answer pointing you toward the right part, so you know where to read first.

Copilot is a finding aid here. The solicitation decides what is required, and your own reading confirms it.

Before You Start

• You have a Microsoft 365 subscription or a Microsoft Copilot license that includes Copilot in Word. Microsoft's page says the license depends on your subscription and your organization's settings, so ask your IT group which license you hold if the Copilot button is missing. Pricing lives on Microsoft's own pages and with your institution's IT.
• The solicitation is a public document you downloaded, saved as a Word file. A published funding announcement is fine. A draft proposal, a budget or a faculty email is a different matter: whether that material may go into an AI tool depends on your institution's AI guidance, and only a tool your institution approved for that data should see it.
• You know which parts you care about: eligibility, required sections, page limits, formatting, budget instructions.

Steps

1. Find the AI feature

Open the solicitation in Word. Microsoft's help page says to select the Copilot Dynamic Action Button in the corner of your document. Copilot opens in the chat pane, with Edit mode turned on by default.

Switch to Chat only before you ask anything. Microsoft's page describes Chat only as the choice where Copilot answers in the chat and makes no changes to your document. A solicitation is a reference copy, and you want it untouched.

2. Tell it what you need

Ask for one topic at a time. Short, specific questions tend to work better than one giant request. Try these:

• "List every section this document says an application must contain. For each one, quote the sentence that says so."
• "Where does this document describe page limits or formatting rules? Quote the sentences."
• "Where does this document describe budget instructions or limits on what can be requested? Quote the sentences."
• "What dates does this document mention, and what is each date for?"
• "What does this document say about subawards or collaborators?"

Asking for quotes gives you something to search for with Word's own find tool. Microsoft's page does not describe numbered citations in the Word chat, so do not count on a link back to the source paragraph. If an answer arrives without a quote, ask again: "Quote the exact sentence for that."

3. Review and use the result

Verify every item before it goes anywhere:

1. For each answer, use Word's find (Ctrl+F) to locate the quoted sentence, and read the paragraph around it.
2. Check that the quote exists as written. A missing quote means the answer is unreliable.
3. Look for what the answer left out. Copilot can miss a requirement or misread one, and a solicitation often says the full application guide adds more requirements. Read the guide itself for anything the chat did not mention.
4. Copy only what you verified into your own requirements checklist, with the page or section number beside each line.

Page limits, due dates and required sections come from the solicitation and the sponsor's current instructions. Your central office settles any question about how they apply.

Real Example

Scenario: A department sends you a funding announcement for the Sponsor X program (invented). PI A wants to know by this afternoon whether the application needs a data management section and what the formatting rules are.

What you type: "List every section this document says an application must contain. For each one, quote the sentence that says so. Then list any formatting rules and quote them."

What you get: A bulleted list of sections, each with a quoted sentence, followed by a short list of formatting rules. In this invented case, the list names a project summary, a project description, a budget, and a data management plan, and it quotes a sentence saying the project description has an invented 15-page limit.

What you do next: Search the document for each quoted sentence and read the paragraph around it. Suppose the data management plan quote turns out to sit in a section about a different award type. You catch that on the read-through and drop the item. Then you check the application guide for anything the announcement refers to but does not repeat. Your checklist carries the verified items only.

Tips

• Start a fresh chat for each solicitation so answers from one document do not bleed into the next.
• Ask the same question two ways when it matters, such as "Where are page limits described?" and "What does the document say about length?" If the answers differ, read the document.
• Microsoft's page notes that Copilot supports fewer languages than the Word interface, so a solicitation in another language may behave differently.

Tool interfaces change. If a button has moved, look for the Copilot button or chat pane in the same area of Word, or ask your IT group which Copilot features your license includes.