WordCraft vs Microsoft Word

WordCraft is a free, open-source copy of the way Word works: the ribbon, styles, shortcuts, track changes, references and mail merge, saved as .docx. Microsoft Word is the product it measures itself against. WordCraft is still alpha software, though. Its developers estimate it is about 60% of the way to replacing Word for real work. It isn’t yet a replacement where a document must look exactly as it does in Word, or where you rely on macros, add-ins or editing with other people.

This page compares the two from the official documentation and Microsoft’s own pages. We haven’t run our own tests. Facts about WordCraft are as of version 0.7.0, and Microsoft’s prices were checked on 16 October 2026.

At a glance

What carries over from Word

WordCraft’s developers set out to rebuild Word’s workflow, and they measure progress against Microsoft Word for Mac (Microsoft 365, version 16.113.4). According to the README, WordCraft has commands for 88% of the features on Word’s ribbon. If you know Word, these work the way you expect:

• The ribbon and the keys. Word’s tabs and groups, the live Styles gallery and Word’s shortcuts: Enter continues a list and Tab demotes it, Ctrl/⌘+B bolds the word under the caret, F4 repeats, F7 checks spelling and F8 extends the selection. By the developers’ count, about 135 of Word’s roughly 250 default shortcuts are in.
• Review. Track changes with accept and reject, comments in margin balloons, document comparison and restricted editing.
• References. Tables of contents, footnotes and endnotes, citations and bibliographies in APA, MLA, Chicago or IEEE style, captions, cross-references and indexes.
• Mailings. Mail merge from CSV files, typed lists or Excel and OpenDocument spreadsheets, plus envelopes and labels.
• Layout. Sections, columns, headers and footers, page numbers, watermarks, drop caps and text wrapping around pictures.
• Files. The README says the .docx files WordCraft saves open in Word.

The features page lists the rest.

What’s missing or different

The WordCraft team keeps a ranked list of where it falls short of Word. These are the gaps a Word user is most likely to notice, as of 0.7.0:

• Real-world .docx files haven’t been tested systematically. No collection of documents from Word, Google Docs, LibreOffice or Pages has yet been opened, saved and compared with Word page by page. Problems are fixed as users report them.
• Line and page breaks can differ from Word. One reason is that Aptos, the font Microsoft 365 uses by default, has no substitute with matching metrics. This matters for forms, legal documents and theses with page limits.
• Crashes and freezes reported by users are still being fixed. The developers list this as one of the gaps that block a beta release.
• Charts, SmartArt and ink. Charts and SmartArt made in Word are drawn and kept when you save, but you can’t edit them. Some ink from Word, such as ink inside a group or a drawing canvas, is dropped without warning.
• No VBA, add-ins, cloud storage or live co-editing. Macros in a .docm file are kept but never run.
• Older password protection. Documents protected with the encryption Word has used by default since Word 2010 open and save normally. Files encrypted by Word 2007, and password-protected .doc files, don’t open.
• Older formats. WordCraft opens Word 97–2003 .doc files but can’t save them, and refuses Word 6 and Word 95 files.
• Fewer dialogs and options. When its developers last counted, on 10 October 2026, WordCraft had 54 dialogs and Word about 100.
• Printing. You can choose a printer, copies, collation, two-sided printing and page ranges. Printer driver options and several pages per sheet aren’t available.
• Spelling and grammar cover only the five languages in the table. Text in any other language, including Chinese, isn’t checked.
• References and mail merge. WordCraft works with a local Zotero, but not with EndNote or Mendeley. Mail merge can’t use Outlook contacts, Access or other databases, and can’t send email.
• Not there yet: a built-in AI assistant, dictation, opening PDFs for editing, and side-by-side document windows.

When WordCraft can make sense

Going by the documented features and gaps, WordCraft is worth a look if:

• you write and edit your own documents and don’t need them to break across pages exactly as in Word;
• you use Linux or FreeBSD and want Word’s way of working in a desktop app;
• you’d rather not pay for a subscription or sign in to an account;
• you want to convert documents in scripts, or let an AI agent such as Claude write them. See MCP and command line.

When to stay with Word

• Documents you receive from others have to go back looking exactly the same: contracts, forms, theses.
• You edit documents together with colleagues in real time, or depend on VBA macros or add-ins.
• You need to save .doc files, or open password-protected files from Word 2007 or in .doc format.
• You write in a language WordCraft doesn’t check, including Chinese.

Trying WordCraft next to Word

Installing WordCraft doesn’t change Word. On Windows, the installer adds WordCraft to the Open with list but doesn’t make itself the default. On a Mac, WordCraft registers as an alternative editor, so Word stays the default for .docx files.

Try it on copies first. Before you send a document you edited in WordCraft, open it in Word and check it, especially the page count and page breaks. The download guides for Windows, macOS and Linux explain how to install it.

Sources

• WordCraft: the README and docs/gaps.md at version 0.7.0, the gap list last updated on 13 October 2026; the proofing languages and password support in the 0.7.0 source code (the gap list still lists password-protected files as missing, but 0.5.0 added them); the list of releases; file associations from the 0.7.0 installers.
• Microsoft Word: Compare Microsoft 365 plans, free Word for the web and real-time co-authoring, checked on 16 October 2026. Prices are Microsoft’s US prices and differ by country.