File-format support

Word is the first-class authoring format. PowerPoint, Excel, and PDF are fully supported.

Compliance documents come in a few common formats — and the product is built around the formats that actually show up in regulated environments. Word for policies, SOPs, and narrative procedures. PowerPoint for training decks and presentations that need version control. Excel for controlled spreadsheets (risk registers, equipment lists, approved-vendor lists). PDF for documents that arrive in final form and just need to be governed.

Word — the first-class authoring format

Word (.docx) is the format optimized end-to-end in the product:

• Authored in Word Online or the Word desktop app, with full co-authoring support.
• Templated from controlled corporate templates set up during implementation.
• Metadata-bound via field codes in the template that auto-fill protocol code, version number, approval dates, and the approver name on the cover page.
• Approved via the sequential approval flow.
• Published — and here the key behavior — converted automatically to PDF the moment the approval flow completes. The PDF is what goes to the public area.

The Word → PDF conversion is the default path because it’s what regulated customers expect: the version that end-users read is the immutable PDF, not a Word file they could accidentally modify. This behavior is covered in detail on the PDF publication page.

PowerPoint — controlled presentation decks

Training materials, onboarding decks, operational briefings — PowerPoint (.pptx) files move through the same lifecycle as Word documents:

• Templated if the customer has standard slide templates.
• Metadata-bound to protocol codes and versions.
• Approved via the sequential approval flow.
• Versioned — major and minor version tracking works identically.
• Distributed via publication email or read-receipts.

PowerPoint files are published in their native .pptx format. End-users open them in PowerPoint Online or the desktop app. Training-completion tracking, when required, goes through the read-receipts product or the customer’s LMS integration.

Excel — controlled spreadsheets

Some compliance documents are structured data, not narrative. Equipment calibration logs, approved-vendor lists, risk registers, HIPAA business-associate trackers, site-asset inventories. These live in Excel (.xlsx) and move through the lifecycle like any other document:

• Metadata, versioning, approval, audit — all fully supported.
• Published in native .xlsx format.
• Co-authoring supported (multiple users in the same workbook simultaneously via Excel Online).

For customers who need strict immutability on Excel documents (signed read-only snapshots for audit), Excel files can be exported to PDF at publication — same pattern as Word, just manual rather than automatic.

PDF — direct publication

Documents that arrive already in PDF — external regulatory documents, vendor attestations, signed contracts that need to be governed alongside internal documents — are handled natively. The PDF goes into the library, picks up its metadata, moves through the approval flow (if needed), and is published.

PDFs that require signature can be routed through the DocuSign integration for PAdES signing. PDFs that are signed externally can be uploaded with the signature already attached and preserved through the lifecycle.

Why Word is privileged

The Word → automatic-PDF publication path is the one that customers most often describe as “the thing that made compliance actually work.” It eliminates the step where somebody has to remember to export Word to PDF, attach it to the right library folder, and notify the team — a step that, in manual workflows, is the point at which version drift typically starts. For Word documents in the product, the human doesn’t choose whether to convert; the system does it.

For PowerPoint and Excel, the equivalent conversion would often lose what makes those formats useful — slide animations, formulas, live layout. Those files are published in their native format, and end-users consume them in the Office apps they already use.

What’s not supported

The product is deliberately focused. Legacy .doc, .xls, and .ppt (the pre-2007 binary formats) aren’t first-class — customers with these files typically convert to the modern format during implementation. Proprietary CAD files, engineering drawings, and specialized formats live in the systems that understand them, with pointers from the DMS when cross-referencing is needed. Video and audio assets live in video-hosting platforms with links from DMS records.

Related features

• Document templates — Word templates that drive consistent document creation.
• PDF publication — automatic Word → PDF at publication.
• Co-authoring — real-time collaboration in Word, PowerPoint, and Excel.

Lifecycle stage: How it works →