Want your AI outputs to look polished, professional, and downright delightful? Here’s the secret: It’s not about the model. It’s about the prompt.
Today, I’ll walk you through three powerful, more advanced techniques: structured commands, markdown formatting, and HTML formatting. Master these, and your AI-generated reports and emails will look like they just got a blowout and a new blazer.
This is where most people get tripped up. They say something like: Create a competitive analysis report.
… And then look surprised when the AI delivers something that resembles a very earnest but confused intern’s first draft.
The fix? Give it structure. Tell it exactly how to arrange the content:
Executive summary: 2–3 sentences.
Top three competitors: numbered list.
Key findings: bullet points.
Recommendations: action-oriented list.
Now the AI knows the assignment. You’re not just asking for information—you’re giving it an editorial outline. Some people like narrative prose, others live for bulleted brevity. Either way, say it in the prompt.
Think of it like this: You’re the editor-in-chief. The AI is your enthusiastic junior writer. It’s talented, yes, but it still needs direction.
Markdown is basically the duct tape of formatting—simple, cheap, and surprisingly elegant if you know how to use it.
Some basics:
* makes bullet points
# creates headings
** adds bold
[] creates checkboxes (for all those to-dos you’ll definitely, definitely get to)
So instead of “five blog post ideas,” try: Give me five blog post ideas for a SaaS company, formatted as a bulleted list with asterisks.
Instant polish. Paste it into Slack, GitHub, or your docs tool, and voilà: clean, readable, and like you totally had a plan.
Want to get fancier? You can:
Use ## for subheadings
Make tables for comparisons
Add + and - for pros and cons
Number steps when order matters (you know, like in baking … or project plans)
Markdown is perfect when you want text that looks structured, without breaking out the heavy duty design tools.
If markdown is duct tape, HTML is the full toolkit—shiny, intimidating, but oh-so-powerful once you pick it up.
And no, you don’t need to be a developer to use it well. You just need a few trusty tags:
<h1> for main headings
<h2> for section headings
<strong> for key metrics
<table> for actual, structured tables (yes, with borders!)
So you might say: Format this as HTML with H1 and H2 headings, tables with borders, strong tags for key metrics, and numbered lists for action items.
Now you’ve got content that’s email-ready, report-ready, or drop-it-in-your-internal-tool ready. (Also: smug-face-ready, when your coworkers ask how you made it look so nice.)
Save your best prompts. Build a little personal library to reference.
Test across platforms. What looks perfect in your AI tool might look like a garage sale in your CRM. Do a quick test run.
Mix and match wisely. Not every document needs the whole fireworks display. Internal note? Keep it simple. Client presentation? Bring out the good china.
Start small. Nail the structure. Sprinkle in markdown. Add HTML when you’re feeling fancy.
Do this consistently, and you’ll save hours of formatting time, impress your team, and (most importantly) finally get outputs that actually look the way you want them to.