> **Last reviewed:** 2026-10-10 · **Last updated:** 2026-10-10 · **Change:** minor (readiness table with hours per audience; full number back to the additive weighted sum, 60%; mainstream and essentials numbers added; alpha gate checked; previously major: full re-measure against Word for Mac 16.113.4; replaces the parity tables that lived in ROADMAP.md) · **Target:** Microsoft Word (Microsoft 365) for Mac 16.113.4
The authoritative assessment of how close WordCraft is to Microsoft Word. [`ROADMAP.md`](../ROADMAP.md)
summarizes it; [`gaps.md`](gaps.md) itemizes every shortfall; the deep checklists are
| Ribbon/menu catalog coverage | **390 / 431 (90.5%)** | **measured**: `cargo xtask parity` (re-derived this pass from `crates/engine/src/catalog.rs` against every `CommandSpec::new` id in the source; identical to the checked-in `parity-checklist.md`) |
| **Ready for real work** (full target) | **~60%** (range 55–63%) | estimated: weighted sum over the dimension table ([By dimension](#by-dimension)) |
| **Mainstream practitioner** | **~55%** | estimated, same method |
| **Essentials user** | **~63%** | estimated, same method |
| Remaining effort to beta | **~150–230 h** of Opus 5.5 agent wall-clock: the blocking beta list ([gaps.md](gaps.md) #1–#7), which lifts file formats, layout, stability and UI enough to reach ~75% | estimated |
| Remaining effort to full parity with Word desktop | **~750–1,250 h** | estimated |
| Commands | 431 engine commands (+ `ui.*` commands in the front end) | measured (source count) |
| Code | ~88,700 lines of Rust in 15 crates, 3 apps and xtask | measured (`wc -l`) |
**Stage: alpha.** All six core workflows pass the [alpha gate](roadmap.md#alpha-gate-core-workflows); see [`ROADMAP.md`](../ROADMAP.md) for why it isn't beta, and the distance.
## What we measured against
- **Microsoft Word for Mac 16.113.4** (Microsoft 365 subscription build, installed on the owner's Mac
at `/Applications/Microsoft Word.app`; version read with `mdls`, bundle modified 2026-10-06).
- Inspected black-box, by **file listing only**, as `AGENTS.md` § Clean room requires (no bundle file
was opened or read): 31 `.lproj` folders (30 interface languages plus Base), 120 proofing tools
under `SharedSupport/Proofing Tools` (spellers, grammars, hyphenators and thesauri for ~50
languages), 12 bibliography styles under `Resources/Style` (APA 6th, Chicago, GB 7714, GOST name
and title, Harvard Anglia, IEEE, ISO 690 author-date and numerical, MLA 7th, SIST02, Turabian),
11 Quick Style sets plus Word 2010, Office themes, a PDF print-dialog extension (`WordPDE.plugin`),
ink rendering (`InkRender.bundle`), a Copilot backstage bundle, and text converters (Excel 2.x–11,
Recover Text).
- Word's file formats, ribbon, dialogs and keyboard shortcuts from Microsoft's public documentation
and our knowledge of Word for Windows and Mac (Microsoft 365). Windows-only features (PDF Reflow
open, Works/WordPerfect import) are counted, because a Word user on Windows expects them.
- WordCraft as it is on origin/main today: source (catalog, command registry, readers/writers,
layout), tests, the i18n catalogs, open issues (62) and open PRs (~45), git history.
- **Not done this pass:** opening real-world .docx files in both apps and comparing pages. There is
no real-world corpus in the repo (Word-produced files can't be committed), and the disk budget
ruled out building. That comparison is the first gap in [`gaps.md`](gaps.md).
## Feature areas
Percent is depth and fidelity against Word, not presence. Weight is our estimate of the share of a
typical Word user's time spent in the area (sums to 100). Hours are Opus 5.5 agent wall-clock to
full parity for the area.
| Area | Weight | Parity | Was (2026-10-06) | Hours | Evidence and what's missing |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Typing, selection, clipboard, undo, find/replace | 12 | 85% | 85% | 8–12 | Typing parity pinned by `tests_typing.rs` ([typing-parity.md](typing-parity.md)). Paste Special (#235), Advanced Find (#234) and Column Selection (#237) landed; Clipboard pane still missing (PR #264 open). |
| Character and paragraph formatting | 11 | 82% | 85% | 8–12 | Nearly every property, Font/Paragraph dialogs, character border. Missing: Phonetic Guide, Enclose Characters, Asian Typography, kerning/ligature/stylistic-set options in the Font dialog's Advanced tab. |
| Styles and themes | 8 | 74% | 75% | 8–12 | Gallery, pane, create/modify, style sets, themes. Style Inspector landed (#236). Missing: Manage Styles (#270 open), style separators, linked-style edge cases; Word ships 11 Quick Style sets plus dozens of themes, we ship our own smaller set. |
| Lists | 6 | 78% | 75% | 5–8 | Bullets, numbering, multilevel, restart, `w:lvlOverride` levels (#134), Word's list AutoFormat and Enter/Backspace behaviour. Missing: Define New Multilevel List dialog depth, list styles, legal numbering edge cases. |
| Tables | 8 | 76% | 72% | 10–16 | Merge/split, styles (cell text takes style formatting, #104), custom table styles saved in the .docx (#256), Word 2013 edge, floating tables, rows split across pages, sort, formula, cell gridlines (#243). Missing: Draw Table/Eraser, nested-table polish, interactive column resize (#49 open, #217). Cell text direction landed (#245). |
| Page layout and sections | 7 | 70% | 72% | 12–20 | Margins, size, columns, breaks, page borders, line numbers, vertical alignment, drop caps, hyphenation. Columns don't balance; no document grid; no vertical text; RTL sections missing. Detail: [layout-parity.md](layout-parity.md). |
| Headers, footers, page numbers, fields | 5 | 70% | 70% | 8–12 | First/even/odd, link to previous, TOC as an updatable field (#52), cross-references to real bookmarks (#227). Field coverage is a subset of Word's ~90 field codes; Field dialog missing. |
| Footnotes and endnotes | 3 | 60% | 60% | 5–8 | Placed and editable, numbers from Word files (#103). Long notes don't continue onto the next page; no continuation separator; no note options per section. |
| References (TOC, citations, bibliography, captions, index, TOA) | 5 | 65% | 60% | 12–20 | Working first versions, Zotero integration (#189), Zotero/Mendeley `ADDIN` fields round-trip. 4 of Word's 12 bibliography styles (APA, MLA, Chicago, IEEE); source manager depth; bibliography sources not yet in DOCX (#169 open). |
| Review (proofing UI, comments, track changes, compare, protect) | 8 | 72% | 75% | 15–25 | Comment balloons, tracked insert/delete incl. paragraph marks (#244, #125), compare, restrict editing. Missing: formatting revisions (`w:rPrChange`/`w:pPrChange`, issue #41), move tracking, track-changes balloons, Translate, Block Authors, modern comment threads/mentions. Lowered: these gaps are confirmed by source (no `rPrChange` anywhere). |
| Proofing (spelling, grammar, thesaurus, languages) | 5 | 35% | (in Review) | 25–45 | English only: one dictionary, a rule-based grammar checker. Word ships 120 proofing tools for ~50 languages plus Editor (style refinements, similarity). Issues #25, #40, #100. |
| Mailings | 2 | 70% | 70% | 6–10 | Mail merge from CSV, fields, rules, preview, envelopes, labels. Select Recipients takes a typed list or CSV (#247); no Excel/Outlook/Contacts data sources, no email merge. |
| Pictures, shapes, text boxes, WordArt | 6 | 60% | 60% | 20–30 | Insert, crop, recolour, styles, floating placement like Word (#136), wrap (square/top-bottom/behind/front), text boxes edit and overflow (#46), VML text boxes (#242). Missing: tight/through contour wrap, rotation handle, group (#267 open), shape effects, WordArt, connectors, Drawing Canvas, Icons, online pictures, screenshot. |
| Equations | 1 | 75% | 20% (with Draw) | 4–8 | OMML read/write, OpenType MATH layout, in-place editor with an Equation tab (#191). Missing: line breaking of long display equations, ink equations. |
| Charts, SmartArt, Draw/ink, 3D models, icons | 4 | 3% | (20% with equations) | 70–110 | Nothing yet: all 11 Draw tab commands missing; charts and SmartArt are dropped on DOCX read (no `c:chart`/`dgm` handling in `crates/docx`). |
| View (modes, zoom, panes, windows) | 3 | 72% | 70% | 6–10 | Print/web/draft/read/focus, dark page (#194), pages side by side when zoomed out (#251), navigation pane. Missing: View Side by Side, Synchronous Scrolling, Arrange All, Switch Windows, Outline view depth, Immersive Reader depth. |
| Backstage, printing, options | 3 | 58% | 55% | 12–20 | New/Home pages (#254), save prompts (#151), web printing via the browser (#209). Desktop printing still goes through PDF; Options has a fraction of Word's panes. |
| Right-to-left and complex scripts | 1 | 50% | 55% | 15–25 | UAX #9, Arabic shaping, RTL paragraphs (#207). No RTL sections/tables, kashida justification or mirrored UI; open bug reports (#215, #211, #199, #66, #63, #48, #19) need re-testing against #207. |
| East Asian typography | 1 | 15% | not rated | 20–30 | IME input works (winit fixes pending, #155–#164). No vertical text, ruby/phonetic guide, document grid, `w:eastAsianLayout`, enclose characters, Asian line-break options. |
| Accessibility | 1 | 35% | not rated | 15–25 | AccessKit enabled in eframe; an accessibility checker exists. Screen-reader access to the document canvas is untested; no alt-text workflow polish, no read-order tools. |
| Agent control (CLI, MCP, control channel, macro record/playback) | 0 | beyond Word | 100%+ | — | Every action is a command id usable from CLI, MCP and a keyed control port. Word has VBA and Office.js instead (see Ecosystem). |
Weighted feature depth: **~68%** (Σ weight × parity / 100 over the table).
## Readiness numbers: full, mainstream practitioner, essentials user
Three numbers, each with its own hours (craftrules `standards/progress-docs.md`, "Numbers"). The
**full** number is the additive weighted sum over the dimension table below. **Mainstream** and
**essentials** average depth over the areas in scope, then multiply by written-down discounts for
what still stops real work. The stage follows the full number and the core-workflow gate.
| Audience | Ready | Opus 5.5 agent wall-clock hours to ~95% | Work that dominates |
|---|---|---|---|
| Full target (ready for real work) | **~60%** | **~650–1,100 h** (70–80% parallelizes) | Breadth: charts/SmartArt/Draw, localization and proofing languages, East Asian and RTL typography, `.doc` writing, PDF Reflow, ecosystem; plus everything below |
| Interaction fidelity | ×0.93 | — | Typing pinned to Word (`tests_typing.rs`), ribbon, keytips, mini-toolbar; but 16 modal dialogs against Word's ~100, 101 of ~250 shortcuts, no table column drag on the canvas (#217, #49), picture/shape handling complaints (#82, #142), lines wrap differently without an Aptos-metric font |
| Discoverability and UI clarity | — | ×0.95 | Word-style ribbon a Word user already knows, command search, keytips; some newer pane strings and tooltips terse or untranslated |
| Stability on real machines | ×0.90 | ×0.90 (launch and install) | Never-crash standard, hostile-param fuzzing, panic guard; but open startup crash on Intel UHD (#170), freezes (#77, #59, #31), Windows writes fail without admin (#218), installer conflicts with other Crafting Apps (#64, #73, #106, #51); 5 days of field history |
| Exchanging files with Word users | ×0.90 | ×0.92 (opening files people send) | Word opens our .docx; `.doc` import; but no real-world corpus test, charts/SmartArt/OLE dropped silently, formatting revisions lost (#41), pagination differs (Aptos, no column balancing or footnote continuation). Simple documents, which are most of what a casual user receives, come through well; double-click open on macOS is fixed on main but not yet released (#223, #279) |
| Product | **×0.753** | **×0.787** | |
### Full target (ready for real work): ~60%
The additive weighted sum over the [dimension table](#by-dimension): **0.30·68 + 0.20·60 + 0.15·55 +
#44, #45, #217, #95; files and saving: #187, #195, #279, #18; printing #15; several may already
be fixed on main), **~11 right-to-left and language** reports (#19, #48, #63, #66, #199, #211,
#215, #25, #40, #56, #100), **~24 feature requests or minor bugs** (catalog parity, macros,
passwords, cloud, theming).
- Reading: people are trying WordCraft as a Word replacement and report core-path problems more
than niche ones; the install and stability discount is earned.
## By dimension
Weights are our estimate of how much each dimension decides whether a professional can switch from
Word. Their weighted sum is the **full ready for real work** number.
| Dimension | Weight | Parity | Hours to full | Doc | Evidence |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Features (depth, table above) | 30% | 68% | 210–335 | this file | Weighted table above. Hours: the area table sums to 290–460 h; the Page layout, Footnotes, RTL and East Asian rows (~50–85 h) are counted under Layout and the Proofing row (25–45 h) under Localization, so they aren't counted twice |
| File formats (DOCX fidelity first) | 20% | 60% | 185–300 | [file-format-parity.md](file-format-parity.md) | DOCX opens in Word and round-trips our own tests, but no real-world corpus test yet; charts, SmartArt, OLE, content controls (unwrapped), formatting revisions and encrypted files are lost or refused |
| Layout and pagination fidelity | 15% | 55% | 90–145 | [layout-parity.md](layout-parity.md) | Aptos has no metric-matched substitute so lines break differently from Word; no column balancing, footnote continuation or document grid; compatibility modes beyond 15 partial |
| Stability | 10% | 50% | 25–45 | [gaps.md](gaps.md) | Never-crash standard and hostile-param fuzzing in place, but open reports of a startup crash on Intel UHD (#170), freezes (#77, #59, #31) and Windows write failure without admin (#218); no soak test; 5 days of field history |
| Performance | 5% | 75% | 10–20 | [layout-parity.md](layout-parity.md) | 61 ms cold layout and 1.4 ms relayout on a 188-page document (measured 2026-10-06, not re-run); font picker freezes fixed in #233; no large real-world documents measured |
| Localization | 4% | 25% | 80–130 + native review | [localization-parity.md](localization-parity.md) | 9 UI languages (Word 30); 4 of the 12 key languages partly done; English-only proofing |
| Platforms | 3% | 95% | 5–10 | [ROADMAP.md](../ROADMAP.md) | macOS (universal, signed), Windows x64/x86/arm64, Linux (AppImage/deb/rpm/Flatpak), FreeBSD, web. Beyond Word on Linux, BSD and the web; Word's iPad/iPhone/Android apps are out of scope |
| Hardware | 1% | 40% | 20–40 | [hardware-parity.md](hardware-parity.md) | No native printing on desktop, no pen/ink, no dictation; GPU drawing and HiDPI fine. Ink hours are in the Features row (Draw tab) |
| Ecosystem and plugins | 2% | 15% | 40–80 | [gaps.md](gaps.md) | Zotero built in, macros record/play commands, `.docm` macros preserved (#172). No VBA execution, no Office add-ins, no EndNote/Mendeley plugins, no cloud storage or co-authoring |
| AI features | 0% | 40% | 15–30 | [gaps.md](gaps.md) | Beyond Word for external agents (MCP, CLI). No in-app writing assistant like Copilot yet (chat PR #178 open). Weight 0: Copilot is a paid add-on and not what decides a switch |
**Ready for real work ≈ 0.30·68 + 0.20·60 + 0.15·55 + 0.10·65 + 0.10·50 + 0.05·75 + 0.04·25 +
0.03·95 + 0.01·40 + 0.02·15 ≈ 60%.**
## Methodology
- **Measured** numbers come from the source on origin/main: the catalog/registry diff (the same
computation as `cargo xtask parity`), `#[test]` counts, i18n catalog rows, reader/writer element
coverage (`grep` over `crates/docx`, `crates/docbin`, `crates/formats`) and the Word bundle
listing. Nothing was built or run this pass (disk budget).
- **Estimated** numbers are judgements from that evidence plus Word's documented feature set. The
| 2026-10-10 | minor | Readiness table: hours to ~95% per audience (full ~650–1,100 h, mainstream ~300–500 h, essentials ~90–140 h). Full number restored to the additive weighted sum, ~47% → ~60%: method aligned with the standard, no new evidence; beta distance back to ~15 points and ~150–230 h |
| 2026-10-10 | minor | Added mainstream practitioner (~54%) and essentials user (~63%) numbers with written weights and discounts; full ready-for-real-work recomputed with the same multiplicative discounts: 60% → ~47% (method change, not new product evidence; stage stays alpha: above 40% and the gate passes); beta now ~450–700 h to the 75% bar; user-evidence counts from GitHub |
| 2026-10-10 | minor | Stage checked against the core-workflow alpha gate: passes, stays alpha |
| 2026-10-10 | major | Created from ROADMAP.md's "Parity by area" and "Estimate to 100%" sections; full re-measure against Word for Mac 16.113.4 (bundle listing, catalog diff from source, issue tracker); split into feature depth (67%) and ready for real work (60%); added proofing, East Asian, accessibility areas and the dimension table; hours re-calibrated from PR history |
| 2026-10-06 | major | First estimate in ROADMAP.md: ~62% real feature parity, 120–150 h to 100% |
