Why Word is failing pentest reporting - and what to do instead

The First Thing We Did? Ditch Word

When we started developing Security Reporter, our first design choice was to eliminate Word entirely. Other security reporting tools are designed specifically to generate Word documents—but we chose a different path.

Why? Because years of pentest reporting experience showed us firsthand that Word is the single biggest source of frustration—wasting time, blocking automation, and, most importantly, preventing security teams from adapting to a rapidly changing world where clients expect more than just a static report.

With skilled security professional becoming increasingly scarce and expensive (source: Fortune), efficiency is no longer optional—it’s essential for handling workloads that are growing faster than teams can expand. At the same time, clients expect a more dynamic, agile approach to security assessments, making it unsustainable to cling to outdated, legacy pentesting methods.

Pentest reporting in Word wastes valuable time, limits interactivity, introduces inconsistencies, and creates a bottleneck for collaboration. Some security teams recognize that Word is no fit for a modern, high-quality pentesting service, yet they still ask:

"Why doesn’t Security Reporter allow exporting to Word?"

The only reason to export to a Word document is to make manual edits—which is exactly where the problem starts. The moment a report becomes a separate Word file, it loses connection to the original data, throwing the door open to inconsistencies, version conflicts, and unnecessary manual work.

• Any changes made in Word will not sync back to Security Reporter, making reporting static, disconnected, and inefficient—exactly the problem Security Reporter was built to solve.
• The audit trail is lost, making it impossible to track changes, ensure accountability, or maintain a reliable reporting history. Security Reporter, on the other hand, keeps a complete version history, ensuring transparency, traceability, and consistency across all reports.
• Word is fundamentally the wrong tool for modern pentest reporting. It slows down workflows, disrupts collaboration, and introduces unnecessary risk.

Here’s why ditching Word makes pentest reporting faster, more efficient, and more reliable.

The Problem with Word-Based Reporting

1. Breaking the Single Source of Truth

Security Reporter is built on the principle of a single source of truth, ensuring that all researchers, clients, and stakeholders always see the same data.

• Exporting a report to Word immediately breaks this model, creating a static, disconnected copy that:
  Becomes outdated the moment it is exported.
• Allows edits in Word that do not sync back to Security Reporter.
• Severs the connection between ongoing assessment changes—new findings, updated risk ratings, revised recommendations, or retests—and the exported document, leading to inconsistencies, version conflicts, and potential data loss.
• Compromises data integrity by allowing clients to modify findings in Word, misrepresenting risks, altering evidence, or weakening security recommendations.

By adhering to the single source of truth with Security Reporter, teams ensure data integrity while benefiting from real-time collaboration, automated updates, and integrated retesting—without the risk of version conflicts or data loss.

2. Formatting in Word is a Nightmare

Anyone who has written a document in Word has experienced the frustration of formatting inconsistencies:

• Headers, fonts, and colors change unpredictably.
• Tables and images refuse to stay in place.
• Manually updating severity labels and sections is error-prone.
• Macros can help, but they require constant maintenance.

Security Reporter completely removes the hassle of manual formatting by providing:

• Consistent report structures every time.
• Automated severity labels, charts, tables, and other components.
• Professional, legible layouts without unnecessary manual styling, adhering to industry standards.

This means pentesters can focus on what actually matters—security.

3. Collaboration in Word is Inefficient

With Word, collaboration is difficult and prone to errors:

• Multiple people editing the same document leads to version conflicts and overwritten work.
• Copy-pasting from older reports or templates increases the risk of errors.
• Locating past findings requires searching through multiple documents manually.

Unlike Word, Security Reporter ensures real-time collaboration and version control:

• No more merging multiple versions or losing edits.
• Built-in templates and past findings make everything easily accessible.
• Automatic version tracking maintains a full audit trail for compliance.

Pentesting teams work smarter, not harder, by eliminating inefficient workflows.

Markdown-Based Input for Maximum Efficiency

Every security professional is familiar with the power of Markdown syntax, widely used in tech platforms like GitHub and documentation tools such as Notion. Instead of struggling with a WYSIWYG editor overloaded with formatting options, Markdown allows pentesters to focus entirely on writing findings, while Security Reporter ensures consistent formatting and automatically generates a structured, professional report.

With Markdown in Security Reporter, you get:

• A distraction-free writing experience—focus on content without wasting time on formatting.
• Consistently structured reports—ensuring uniformity across all assessments.

Unnecessary formatting options or ad-hoc custom styling almost always result in inconsistent reports, making them harder to read and less professional.

With Security Reporter, themes and templates are set up as a driving baseline, ensuring company branding and structure are automatically applied—eliminating the need for manual formatting adjustments.

This allows pentesters to focus on delivering high-quality security insights instead of getting lost in formatting issues.

Conclusion: Leave Word Where It Belongs—In the Past

For decades, pentest reporting has been trapped in an outdated workflow—teams struggling with Word documents, manual formatting, version conflicts, and static reports that no longer meet today’s demands. It’s a relic from a time when security was treated as a one-time event rather than an ongoing process that requires agility and flexibility.

Security Reporter breaks with that tradition. While other tools still rely heavily on Word and enable disconnected workflows, we reject the idea that reporting involves a manual, fragmented process prone to inconsistency and data loss. Instead, we focus on automation, structured data, and standardization—delivering obvious efficiency gains while ensuring that reports are not just easier to create, but also auditable, maintain integrity, and adhere to the highest quality standards.

Pentesting has evolved, but reporting is lagging behind. It’s time to embrace a modern, efficient workflow—and leave Word where it belongs: in the past.