PDF, CSV, Markdown or a native document: which export should you keep?
Choose Windows document export formats for reading, data exchange, editable text and recovery, with a tested InQ workflow example.
Keep the editable original as well as the deliverable
A document can hold text, calculations, images, comments and layout. No single exchange format preserves every feature. Keep a native working copy for editing and choose a separate deliverable for the recipient. A PDF sent to someone else does not replace a recoverable version of the source document.
Use PDF for the reading view
Inspect every exported page, including page breaks, wide tables, captions and non-English text. Check that text can be selected when that matters to the recipient. InQ exports through a local Chromium PDF renderer; tagged output does not establish PDF/UA certification. Wide InQ tables are split into eight-column bands with repeated row numbers.
Use CSV for one plain table
CSV is useful when another tool needs table values. It does not carry the surrounding narrative, chart layout, comments or the entire document structure. Reopen the file in the intended consumer and check delimiters, text encoding, decimal conventions and leading-zero identifiers. Keep the native document for formulas and review context.
Use Markdown for portable text, with deliberate losses
Markdown is easy to read and move between text tools, but rich layout and app-specific objects may be flattened or omitted. InQ treats Markdown as a lossy interchange format. If the document contains embedded images, charts or review metadata, inspect what survived and retain the original .inq file.
Try the financial-model example
The checked Windows InQ candidate used revenue of 1,200 and costs of 400 and displayed profit of 800. Saving and relaunching restored that synthetic document and result. To evaluate your own workflow, repeat a small calculation, export a reading copy, and confirm that the displayed totals agree. This does not make InQ a full Excel replacement.
Check Mac-to-Windows documents separately
InQ retains unsupported rich-text data until an explicit conversion to editable plain text. Different renderers can still display complex RTF differently. Try a copy of a representative Mac document, especially one with unusual formatting or images. Keep the original and compare both the editable content and final exported pages.