Spec sheet, cut sheet, tear sheet, schedule. Which is which
Four names for the paperwork around a product, what each one is for, who makes it, and which one to send when someone asks for "the specs".
Every product in a project ends up on paper at least four times, under four different names. They get used interchangeably in emails and they should not be. The difference is who made the sheet and what it is for.
What is a spec sheet
A specification sheet describes one product in enough detail to buy, install and approve it: name, maker, product code, dimensions, materials, finish, electrical or plumbing requirements, certifications, price. Manufacturers publish one for each product. Designers make their own when the manufacturer's is incomplete, when the chosen variant needs stating, or when the client needs to sign off on the item.
A designer's spec sheet is a client-facing page. It carries the project's own code for the item, an image, the values the client cares about, and often a note on where the item goes. One page per product, or one page per category with a few products on it.
What is a cut sheet
A cut sheet is the manufacturer's technical page for a product: the drawing with dimensions, the mounting details, the wattage, the weight, the variants. The name comes from catalogue pages that were literally cut out and filed. Cut sheets are what the contractor and the engineer need; they rarely include price and they never include your project's code.
When a client asks for "the specs" and you send the cut sheet, they get a drawing with fourteen dimensions and no picture of the chair. When the contractor asks and you send your spec sheet, they get a nice picture and not the mounting detail. Send each reader their own.
What is a tear sheet
A tear sheet is the image page: a photograph of the product with a few lines under it, taken from the supplier's catalogue or web page. Also known as a look sheet, or just "the image". It is for presenting, not for ordering. A mood board is a wall of tear sheets.
Tear sheets are the first thing made on a project and the last thing anyone checks. The photo shows the walnut version; the one that was ordered is oak. The tear sheet is not wrong. It was never the record.
What is a schedule
The schedule is the list. Every item in the project, one row each, with the columns the readers after you need: code, name, supplier, product code, dimensions, finish, price, quantity, location. It is the document the whole project buys against, and the one that has to stay true from the first draft to the last delivery. What is an FF&E schedule, and what has to be in it goes through the columns one by one.
Spec sheets and the schedule hold the same values in two shapes. The schedule is the table; the spec sheet is one row of it, laid out for reading.
Spec sheet, cut sheet or tear sheet: which one to send
| Who is asking | Send them |
|---|---|
| The client, to approve a selection | Your spec sheet, or the schedule printed as cards with images |
| The contractor, to price and order | The schedule, with product codes and quantities, and the cut sheets for anything that gets installed |
| The engineer, for loads and services | The cut sheets |
| A colleague, to see the look | The tear sheets, or the schedule as cards |
| Anyone, six months later, asking "which one was it" | The schedule row, with the link to the product page |
Keep one record, print the rest
The mistake behind most of the confusion is keeping four documents. Keep one: the schedule, with a source link on every row. The spec sheets and the card views are prints of it. The cut sheets are the manufacturer's and live behind the link. The tear sheet is the image column.
That is how Intspec is arranged. The rows come from the supplier links you paste, the values are marked by where they came from, and the table, the list and the cards are three prints of the same rows. When the finish changes, one value changes, and every print follows.