For such reasons, I think it is a good idea to use plain ASCII text format to document protocols and file formats as much as possible. (It is especially a probl

For such reasons, I think it is a good idea to use plain ASCII text format to document protocols and file formats as much as possible. (It is especially a problem if the documentation of a more complicated format or protocol requires use of that format or protocol itself.) There is also Just Solve The File Format Problem wiki (which I have added stuff to), although it uses HTML, and does not include full specifications for all file formats (but it does for some of them), and in some cases are links to external files, but it is helpful to find information about file formats anyways.