Should Contracted Development Specs Stay in Excel? — Choosing the Right Format for Deliverables (archived 2026-07-27)

Should the specification and design documents delivered in contracted development stay in Excel 'graph paper' format? This article works through the problems with Excel-based specs from an acceptance-testing and maintenance standpoint, and explains how to choose a format that actually works as a deliverable — including Word and generating documents from a Markdown source. Archived version of https://comcomponent.com/en/blog/deliverable-spec-documents-format-excel-word/, as published on 2026-07-27. The live article is maintained and may change after this date. First published 2026-07-17.