Intro to Spec Sheets

How spec sheets differ from schedules

The Spec Sheet template was designed purposefully to display the technical information of an individual product in a concise format, suitable to send to your clients and trades. Unlike a schedule, which is essentially a running list of various specification proposals for a project, the data on a spec sheet is contained to one page per product.

You can attach multi-page PDF files to a spec sheet including technical drawings, installation guides etc.

You can also hyperlink your spec sheet to the product online.

Understanding spec sheets

Inspec Spec Sheets are unique in their formatting and export style, which means you cannot create a spec sheet from scratch the way you can for a schedule. You can only use the pre-built spec sheet template which can be found on the templates tab under Inspec Templates. To learn more about templates and how to save them to your personal library, click here.

Adjusting the spec sheet template

The template was deliberately constructed to be easily tweaked. We have called it a Lighting Spec Sheet template, but essentially you can change this and use the template for any category of product you like.

Once you have added the template to your library, you may customise the field names to align with your company preferences, as we have designed this template to accommodate a broad range of users. To learn more about fields, click here.

To do so, simply open the template from your library to enter edit mode, where you can make necessary amendments and add a disclaimer if desired. To learn more about editing templates, click here.

This template has been specifically designed to ensure the final PDF export is visually distinct from standard schedule exports. We recommend customising the existing Spec Sheet template rather than creating one from scratch to maintain this intentional differentiation.

Creating your first spec sheet

Spec sheets will always export individually (page by page), but will all be documented under one main spec sheet file. It is possible to create multiple spec sheet files if necessary within the same project.

Spec sheets have a very similar editing layout to schedules, but rather than being divided into sections, your work is divided into products. To learn more about managing & editing your spec sheet, click here.

Managing & editing your spec sheet

Products

Products are where you can input the specification information for your spec sheet file into individual items. For example, if you were creating lighting spec sheets, one product might be a wall light, the next product might be a chandelier and so forth.

To edit your product name, add a photo, reorder the product in your spec sheet file or delete the product entirely click the product heading.

Products will always be displayed one to a page when exported to PDF.

Fields

If you have saved the Inspec template or adjusted it to suit your preferences, you will see each field appear in a column style format within the product. Fields can be renamed or deleted by clicking on the field heading. Fields are also assigned a Field Type, which limits the style of information that can be added to any cell beneath it.

Fields can be reordered by click and dragging the grip icon beside the field heading to the desired location.

Fields can be resized by click and dragging on the divider line that appears when hovering over the field.

Changes made manually to fields in spec sheets will not translate over to the saved template.

You cannot make changes to fields for individual products within the same spec sheet file, all fields must stay consistent.

Rows

A row is where you will input the information for your product. Spec sheets are designed to only have one row per product. If you add a second row to your product, you will see a warning in orange to say that only the first row will be visible on the exported PDF. We strongly encourage users not to use more than one row per product for spec sheets.

If you hover above a row, you will see a speech bubble icon and grip icon appear to the left of the section tile. Each row will have its own set of icons.

Speech Bubble Features

The speech bubble icon allows you to make comments against a specific row. To learn more about comments, click here.

Grip Icon Features

The grip icon has many functions.

If you click on the icon, a dropdown menu appears with options to add a hyperlink, add attachments, the ability to rearrange your row or delete the row entirely.

You won't need to worry much about rearranging a row. This is more relevant in schedules. To learn more about schedules, click here.

There is more than one way to populate a row with information for your specification:

1. Manually entering information
2. Add From URL feature
3. Web Clipper

Read more about Add From URL and Web Clipper.

Attaching documents to your spec sheet

Adding attachments to a product within a spec sheet file is a convenient way to redirect your contractors & consultants to technical drawings, installation guides etc that are relevant to the product. Your attachments are then easily downloadable from the exported PDF document by clicking on the document icon.

Hyperlinking your product

Adding hyperlinks to your spec sheets can be a useful tool to reference the product online or to provide other valuable information on the specification.

Hyperlinks can only be added to individual rows. Only one hyperlink per row can be added.

Related Frequently Asked Questions