wordcraft/docs/layout-parity.md

Layout and pagination parity with Microsoft Word

Last reviewed: 2026-10-10 · Last updated: 2026-10-11 · Change: trivial (complex-script shaping and Myanmar line breaking, #604; previously trivial: body page totals, table-cell footnotes and bookmark link pages fixed, #450 #451 #455; previously major: first version; line breaking, pagination and object placement checked against Word's behaviour from the layout source on origin/main) · Target: Microsoft Word (Microsoft 365) for Mac 16.113.4

A document only "opens correctly" if its pages break where Word breaks them: the same lines, the same page count, footnotes and pictures on the same pages. This checklist covers line breaking, pagination and object placement in crates/layout. Typing behaviour is in typing-parity.md; the reading and writing of the properties is in file-format-parity.md.

Dimension: ~55% (estimated), 90–145 h to full (the sum of the rows below). The engine implements most of Word's layout rules, but nothing has been compared page-for-page with Word on real documents, and the default font can't match Word's metrics.

Checklist

✅ matches Word as far as our tests show · 🟡 implemented, differs or untested against Word · ❌ missing

Feature	State	Evidence / gap	Hours
Line breaking (UAX #14 with Word's exceptions: no break after /)	✅	layout::tests::no_line_break_right_after_a_slash	—
Justification, Word 2013+ space shrinking (compat mode 15)	✅	#109	—
Complex scripts (Myanmar, Khmer, Indic): shaped per script run with OpenType fallback fonts, one cluster per syllable, Myanmar wraps between syllables	🟡	layout::tests_complex (#604). Khmer, Thai and Lao still wrap only at spaces (need a dictionary)	4–8
Kashida justification (Arabic)	❌	no kashida in crates/layout	3–5
Distributed / Thai distributed alignment	🟡	read; layout untested	1–2
Default font metrics (Aptos, Calibri, Cambria…)	🟡	Carlito/Caladea/Liberation are metric-compatible for Calibri/Cambria/Arial/Times/Courier; Aptos (Word's default since 2024) has no metric-compatible open substitute, so new Word documents wrap differently (typing-parity.md Known gaps). Needs an owner decision (commission or license a metric-matched font)	6–10 + owner
Indents in characters (w:firstLineChars, w:leftChars…), measured in the paragraph mark's font size	✅	#534, layout::tests::character_indents_use_the_paragraph_mark_size; spacing in lines (w:beforeLines/w:afterLines) uses the stored points (needs the document grid)	—
Line spacing (single, 1.5, double, at least, exactly, multiple), spacing before/after, contextual spacing	🟡	Word puts multiple-spacing extra below the text and collapses spacing differently (#135, #108 open)	3–5
Widow/orphan control, keep with next, keep lines together, page break before	✅	lib.rs keep_next/keep_lines; a line holding only a page break stays at the bottom of a full page instead of leaving a blank page (#534)	—
Tabs (left, center, right, decimal, bar), leaders	🟡	Bar tabs untested	1–2
Hyphenation (automatic, zone from the document, words in capitals, soft hyphens, consecutive limit, Manual Hyphenation, #407)	🟡	English patterns only; other languages hyphenate wrongly or not at all	in localization
Drop caps	✅	2026-10-06	—
Columns, column breaks, separators, balancing	✅	Columns balance on a section's last page when the next section starts continuous (also at the document end, which Word only balances when the document ends with a continuous break); not after next-page/even/odd breaks or on a page with a column break; keep-together, keep-with-next, widow/orphan control and unsplittable rows can leave them slightly uneven (#350)	—
Section breaks (next page, continuous, even, odd), different first page, odd/even headers	✅	Section breaks don't show in Draft view (#42)	1–2
List labels: number formats (decimal, letters, roman, ordinal text, Chinese/Japanese/Korean counting and legal, 一〇一 digits, 甲乙丙, ①…⑳, full-width), %n text such as 第%1章 / （%1）, legal numbering	✅	doc::cjk_numbers tests, layout::tests::chinese_counting_list_labels_and_their_font_runs; a label mixing faces (digit + CJK comma) is drawn run by run (#534). Hebrew, Arabic, Hindi, Thai, Vietnamese and Russian formats show decimal	—
Body top below a tall header, footer pushes body up	✅	#138; a footer taller than the bottom margin moves the body bottom up (#453), and a header or footer linked to the previous section takes its room too (#454)	—
Footnotes at the page bottom, endnotes at the end, note numbering	🟡	A long note continues onto the next page at a line boundary (its first line stays with the reference), first in that page's note area under a full-width continuation separator (#352); the document's own separator, continuation separator and continuation notice are drawn (the notice under a note that continues); a long endnote continues on the next column or page at a line boundary (#456), and the caret finds note text on its continuation page (#457); per-section restart partial	1–3
Body top below a tall header, footer pushes body up	✅	#138	—
Footnotes at the page bottom, endnotes at the end, note numbering	🟡	A long note continues onto the next page at a line boundary (its first line stays with the reference), first in that page's note area under a full-width continuation separator (#352); the document's own separator, continuation separator and continuation notice are drawn (the notice under a note that continues; endnotes use the document's separator but don't continue onto a page of their own); each section's note options: footnotes below the text, endnotes at the end of each section, start at, numbering restarted each section or each page (counted from where the notes land, at most three passes) (#385)	1–2
Tables: row heights (at least/exact), rows split across pages, header rows repeat, Can't Split	✅	2026-10-06, #138	—
Tables: autofit to contents/window, fixed widths, Word 2013 edge	🟡	#137; #44: AutoFit Contents measures each column's narrowest and widest text and shares the width like Word, once (not live as you type); cell preferred widths and spans still differ	3–5
Floating tables (w:tblpPr)	🟡	#137; one placed on the page or margin that would cover the text before it and doesn't fit below it moves to the next page (#534); overlap rules untested	2–3
Nested tables	🟡	render; polish missing	2–4
Floating pictures/shapes placement (relative to page/margin/column/paragraph/line/character)	✅	#136	—
Text wrap: square, top-and-bottom, behind, in front	✅	2026-10-06	—
Text wrap: tight, through (contour, wrap polygon)	🟡	#354: lines follow the wrap polygon, or the outline worked out from the object (shape geometry; a picture's opaque pixels as a convex hull; otherwise the rectangle), turned and flipped with it, kept the left/right distance from text; Through also uses gaps inside the outline. Wrap side (wrapText: both sides, left only, right only, largest side per line) applies to square, tight and through wraps, turned objects included; picture outlines are convex; not compared page-for-page with Word	1–2
Text boxes, overflow, linked text boxes	✅	#46; linked text boxes (#369): the text runs on through each box in turn at that box's line length, overflow past the last box hidden; Align Text top / middle / bottom	—
Rotated objects and text	🟡	#332: pictures, shapes, charts and groups drawn turned and flipped about their centre (screen and PDF); square wrap and inline lines keep clear of the rotated bounds; hit testing on the turned shape. Text in a rotated text box stays upright	2–3
Page borders (from page edge or text), page colour, watermark	✅		—
Line numbers (restart per page/section, count by)	✅		—
Vertical page alignment	✅		—
Gutter, mirror margins, book fold, 2 pages per sheet	🟡	gutter and mirror margins (even pages put the inside margin and gutter on the right, #452; page-relative floats move with the text); book fold missing	2–3
Document grid (w:docGrid, lines per page, characters per line)	❌	East Asian documents paginate differently without it	4–6
Vertical text (tbRl) in sections and text boxes; cell text direction	✅	cell text direction (#245); text-box text direction (#369); vertical sections (tbRl/btLr, #491): the page's text area turned, lines top to bottom stacking right to left, ideographs, kana and Hangul upright, Latin on its side, caret and clicks through the turn. Missing: OpenType vert alternates (punctuation is moved, not substituted), arrow keys along vertical lines, upright pictures take turned room	2–4
Gutter, mirror margins, book fold, 2 pages per sheet	🟡	gutter and mirror margins; book fold missing	2–3
Document grid (w:docGrid, lines per page, characters per line)	🟡	#391: line grid snaps line heights to whole pitches (text centred in them; w:snapToGrid off opts a paragraph out); character grid puts East Asian characters on the character pitch (linesAndChars) or all text (snapToChars), Latin text proportional; View › Gridlines draws it. Not yet: run-level w:snapToGrid, grid in headers/footers, paragraph spacing in grid lines, Word's exact glyph placement in a cell	1–2
Ruby / phonetic guide, enclose characters, combined characters	🟡	ruby (Phonetic Guide) landed (#288): ruby text over its base by alignment, line grows to fit, in PDF; enclose and combined characters missing; ruby not yet compared with Word page by page	2–4
Bidirectional paragraphs, mixed-direction lines; RTL tables and sections	🟡	#207; RTL tables (#362): grid columns from the right edge, start alignment and indent from the right margin, cell margins and left/right borders mirrored, merged and turned cells and nested tables included; RTL sections (#362): newspaper columns right to left with the line between mirrored. Right-hand page gutter (w:rtlGutter) missing	1
Equations: display layout, numbering, wrapping long display equations	✅	#191; long display equations break at top-level operators (m:brkBin, m:brkBinSub), manual breaks and m:alnAt, continuation lines indented by m:wrapIndent or set right (m:wrapRight) (#326)	—
Hidden text excluded from breaking and hyphenation	✅	#173	—
Fields: PAGE, NUMPAGES, SECTIONPAGES, TOC page numbers	✅	#52; totals in the body need a second pass once the page count is known (#451)	—
Compatibility modes (Word 2003/2007/2010 layout for old files: w:compat options)	🟡	mode 15 behaviour; the ~60 legacy compat options are mostly ignored	10–20
Page-by-page comparison harness against Word	❌	Run Word locally on our own synthetic documents, export PDF, compare line breaks; Word output stays under plan/ (never committed)	8–12

Performance

Measure	WordCraft	Word	Kind
Cold layout, 188-page document	61 ms	not measured	measured 2026-10-06 (not re-run this pass)
Relayout after an edit	1.4 ms	not measured	measured 2026-10-06
Font picker with many installed fonts	fixed freezes (#233)	instant	issue #31, #59
Large real-world documents (500+ pages, many pictures)	not measured		gap

Revision history

Date	Change	Summary
2026-10-11	trivial	Chinese documents (#534): indents in characters, a page-anchored floating table after a full page moves to the next page, no blank page from a page break at the bottom of a full page
2026-10-11	trivial	East Asian list number formats (一、二、三, 第一章, ①); list labels whose characters come from two fonts draw each part with its own font (the digits of "1、" no longer show as other letters); a list level without indents leaves the label at the paragraph edge (#534)
2026-10-11	trivial	Vertical sections: w:textDirection in w:sectPr, upright East Asian glyphs (#491)
2026-10-11	trivial	Mirror indents (w:mirrorIndents): left/right indents swap on even pages; suppress line numbers inherited from styles (#512)
2026-10-11	trivial	NUMPAGES/SECTIONPAGES in the body show the real totals (the body is laid out again once the page count is known, at most three extra passes, #451); footnotes referenced in table cells go to the page bottom (#450); PDF links to a bookmark go to the page its start is on, not its paragraph's first page (#455)
2026-10-11	minor	Complex scripts: script itemisation, OpenType fallback fonts, syllable clusters, Myanmar syllable breaks (#604)
2026-10-11	trivial	Mirrored margins on even pages, tall and linked footers/headers push the body, long endnotes continue, caret in continued notes (#452, #453, #454, #456, #457)
2026-10-11	trivial	Hyphenation zone, words in capitals and consecutive-hyphen limit follow the document settings; Manual Hyphenation (#407)
2026-10-11	trivial	Document grid: line and character pitch (#391)
2026-10-11	trivial	Linked text boxes, Align Text and text-box text direction (#369)
2026-10-11	trivial	Right-to-left tables and sections laid out mirrored (#362)
2026-10-10	trivial	The document's own note separators and continuation notice are drawn (#352)
2026-10-11	trivial	Newspaper columns balance before a continuous section break (#350)
2026-10-11	trivial	Group and Ungroup keep turned members' orientation and placement (#441, #443); Size resizes a group (#442); the eraser hits turned ink where it is drawn (#445)
2026-10-10	trivial	Long footnotes continue onto the next page with a continuation separator (#352)
2026-10-11	trivial	EQ \o fields overstrike their arguments; enclosed characters draw their circle, square, triangle or diamond as vectors (#297)
2026-10-11	trivial	Ruby (Phonetic Guide) layout landed (#288)
2026-10-10	trivial	Wrap side: text on both sides, left only, right only or the largest side of an object (#354)
2026-10-10	trivial	Tight and Through wrapping follow the object's outline (#354)
2026-10-10	trivial	Rotated and flipped objects laid out and drawn (#332)
2026-10-11	trivial	Footnotes below text, endnotes at the end of each section, note numbering restarted per section or page (#385)
2026-10-10	trivial	Long display equations wrap across lines (#326)
2026-10-10	trivial	AutoFit Contents measures the text (#44)
2026-10-10	major	First version: layout and pagination checklist with evidence from crates/layout, PRs and issues