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Get Started with ChatGPT Prompts

IN THIS CHAPTER, you set yourself up to use ChatGPT and learn the essentials of giving prompts. I suggest you begin by setting up a free research preview account so that you can take ChatGPT for a spin without having to pay. You can then start prompting ChatGPT for information and evaluate the responses it returns.

Assuming you like what you see, you can upgrade from the free account to a paid account, which gives you access to the full range of ChatGPT's features.

Whether you go for a paid account or stick with the free preview account, you can choose settings to control how the account works. The paid account has a few more settings, which we'll cover in this chapter, too.

Toward the end of the chapter, we'll look at how to set up ChatGPT on your other computers and on your iPhone, iPad, or Android device.

Set Up a Free Research Preview Account

If you want to test ChatGPT before you start paying for it, set up a free account. A free account enables you to use enough of ChatGPT's features to evaluate it effectively. You don't get access to the latest and most advanced features, and ChatGPT may respond more slowly when the service is busy, because it gives priority to its paying customers.

Setting up an account takes only a couple of minutes, so there's no downside. You need to provide an email address, which OpenAI uses as the ID for your account, and a phone number, which OpenAI uses for verification.

NOTE As well as letting you create a research preview account using your email address, the Create Your Account screen enables you to create your account by using your Google Account, your Microsoft Account, or your Apple ID. Click the Continue with Google button, the Continue with Microsoft Account button, or the Continue with Apple button if you want to use one of these options.

To set up your research preview account, open a web browser to chat.openai.com, click the Sign Up button to display the Create Your Account screen (see Figure 1-1), and then follow the prompts. These are the key steps:

1. To verify your email address, OpenAI sends you an email, which you may need to retrieve from your Junk folder; click the Verify Email Address button to perform the verification.
2. On the Tell Us About You screen, enter your first name, last name, and birthday (to verify you're old enough to use ChatGPT), and click another Continue button.
3. On the Verify Your Phone Number screen, pick your country from the drop-down list, type your phone number, and then click the Send Code button. When your phone receives the code, enter it on your computer.

Once you finish signing up, verify your email address, and you'll be able to log into your account.

Figure 1-1 On the Create Your Account screen, type your email address and click the Continue button.

Take ChatGPT for a Spin

Once you've set up your research preview account, you're ready to take ChatGPT for a spin.

Log In and Meet the ChatGPT Interface

Log in using your shiny new credentials, and you'll see an interface like that shown in Figure 1-2. The various parts of the interface are straightforward:

• Sidebar. This pane appears on the left of the window and gives you access to your chats and your account.

  Figure 1-2 The ChatGPT interface is clean and straightforward to navigate.

• New Chat button. Click this button to start a new chat. Each chat appears as a button in the sidebar, and you can navigate from chat to chat by clicking the appropriate button.
• Show/Hide Sidebar button. Click this button to hide the sidebar when it is displayed; when the sidebar is hidden, click the button to show the sidebar again. If you're working in a small window, hiding the sidebar gives you more space for the active chat. If you're working in a large window, you may just want to leave the sidebar displayed so that you can navigate easily between your chats.

  Figure 1-3 Click the Your Account button to display the control menu.

• Main pane. This area shows your active chat.
• Send a Message box. In this box, you type or paste the prompt or information you want to pass to ChatGPT. You then press Enter or click the Send button.
• Send button. Click this button to send the contents of the Send a Message box to ChatGPT.
• Upgrade to Plus button. Click this button to start the process of upgrading from a free research preview account to a paid Plus account.
• Your Account button. This button shows the email address for your account. Click this button to display the control menu shown in Figure 1-3, which gives you access to ChatGPT's Help & FAQ section, lets you access the Settings screen, and enables you to log out.

Give Prompts

Click in the Send a Message box and type what you want to convey to ChatGPT. Here's a quick example to follow. This book shows prompts in boldface, with italics indicating any placeholder text you'll need to supply-for example, in the prompt What does a job_title do?, you'd replace job_title with "lapidary," "hair boiler," "wainwright," or whatever. The book shows ChatGPT's responses in italics, as in the second paragraph of the example.

• Explain in 30 words what a mortgage is.
• A mortgage is a loan provided by a bank or lender to help individuals or businesses purchase property, with the property serving as collateral until the loan is fully repaid.

  NOTE If you need to create a new line, press Shift+Enter. (Don't press Enter on its own because that sends the prompt to ChatGPT.) If you need to paste in something you've copied from elsewhere, give a Paste command. Normally, pressing the standard shortcut, Ctrl+V, is the easiest way. But you can also right-click in the prompt box, and then click Paste on the contextual menu.

Figure 1-4 shows what the ChatGPT window looks like after you give the prompt. As you can see, several new elements appear, enabling you to take further actions:

• Chat button. ChatGPT adds a button for the chat to the top of the sidebar and assigns a default name based on your prompt and the response. In the example, ChatGPT names the chat Mortgage Loan Explanation. You can rename the chat by clicking the Rename button.
• Today section. ChatGPT breaks up the list of chats in the sidebar by time period-Today, Yesterday, Previous 7 Days, and so on.
• Rename button. To rename the chat, click this button, type the new name, and then click the check mark button or press Enter.

  Figure 1-4 When ChatGPT responds to the prompt, you can take several other actions.

• Share button. Click this button to start the process of sharing the chat. See the section "Share a Link to a Chat," later in this chapter, for more information.
• Delete button. To delete the chat, click this button, and then click the check mark button to its right.
• Your initials. This icon shows your initials or the first two letters of your username, making clear the prompt is your input.
• Your prompt. The prompt you entered appears.
• Edit button. Click this button to edit your prompt. More on this in a moment.
• ChatGPT icon. This icon appears to the left of each response from ChatGPT.
• ChatGPT's response. ChatGPT's response appears. If the response is long enough to extend past the bottom of the window, scroll down to see more of it. Alternatively, click the Scroll Down button, a down-pointing arrow in a circle in the lower-right corner of the window.
• Regenerate Response button. Click this button to make ChatGPT take another shot at the response. You'd do this if ChatGPT's response is largely on target but you'd like to see it written differently. After ChatGPT regenerates the response, a Previous (<) button and a Next (>) button appear. Click these buttons to navigate from one response to another.
• Copy button. Click this button to copy ChatGPT's response to the Clipboard so that you can paste it elsewhere.
• Like button. Click this button to tell ChatGPT that this response gets your approval.
• Dislike button. Click this button to let ChatGPT know you don't like this response.

If ChatGPT's response isn't what you're looking for, you can edit the prompt, input more information to refine the prompt, or simply prompt again, as discussed next.

Edit the Prompt, Add Information, or Prompt Again

To edit the prompt, click the Edit button. ChatGPT opens up the prompt for editing (see Figure 1-5), and you can make whatever changes are needed. When you finish, click the Save & Submit button. ChatGPT updates its response.

Figure 1-5 After clicking the Edit button, type the changes to your prompt, and then click the Save & Submit button.

If you want to leave the prompt as it stands but input more information, type the extra information in the...