.docx file look the same after it passes through WordCraft? The project has not yet tested that on real documents.The project's own materials describe a clean-room reimplementation of Word. It offers the ribbon, styles, tables, track changes, references and mail merge. It reads and writes .docx and runs natively on macOS, Windows, Linux and BSD, and in the browser through WebAssembly. The license is MIT OR Apache-2.0, and it can be driven by agents over MCP.
The numbers below come from the project's own roadmap and repository. No one has independently confirmed them. The author of the guide that prompted this piece also says he did not install the program or try real files, and neither did I.
Where it came from
WordCraft is part of ArtCraft, the studio run by Brandon Thomas. The repository calls it one of the "Crafting Apps", each written from scratch in Rust. ArtCraft published WordCraft, GridCraft and DeckCraft on GitHub as clones of Word, Excel and PowerPoint, and the repositories call them clean-room reimplementations. That means they were written from public file-format specifications rather than Microsoft code. Each project says it isn't affiliated with or endorsed by Microsoft. The GitHub history lists "Claude Opus 5.5" as a co-author.
Reading the percentages
The roadmap is labelled alpha and was last updated on October 11. It reports these figures:
| Measure | Project's figure | Type |
|---|---|---|
| Ribbon/menu items with a command | 487 of 502 (97.0%) | Counted in code |
| Feature breadth | about 80% | Estimate |
| Essentials user readiness | about 63% | Estimate |
| Mainstream practitioner readiness | about 55% | Estimate |
| Ready for real work | about 60% | Estimate |
| Hours to beta | about 150–230 | Estimate |
| Hours to full parity | about 750–1,250 | Estimate |
The 97% figure counts commands that exist. It does not say how well they work. The same document estimates readiness for real work at about 60%. The hours are Opus 5.5 agent wall-clock time, not human labor.
Project figures also drift. The roadmap's headline table lists 433 commands. The README describes the engine with 422. Treat any count as a snapshot from a particular day.
The .docx problem
The roadmap explains why the project is alpha and not beta. Reporting on the project noted that DOCX compatibility testing had not yet started. The roadmap itself says .docx has never been tested on real-world files. It lists several related gaps:
- Pagination differs from Word. There is no font with Aptos metrics, and column balancing and footnote continuation are incomplete.
- Content controls are lost.
- There is open field evidence of a startup crash and several hangs.
Some of these items are moving quickly. The roadmap says charts, SmartArt and OLE objects are dropped silently. Its progress log also records work to preserve them on save. Charts, SmartArt and OLE objects now survive open and save with their parts. Later entries describe preserving custom XML stores, imported tables of contents and Word ink through edited saves. Check the build you are running rather than assuming either description holds.
The roadmap also describes recent layout work, such as keep-with-next and list indents. It says these were checked against Word for Windows on "cases measured". That is encouraging but is still the project's self-reporting. It is not a corpus of real colleague files, which is the test that matters for office use.
The guide also gives per-format fidelity estimates, such as about 65% for .docx and about 55% for pagination. It says the tests so far used synthetic files only. Treat these as the project's estimates.
Other limits
The guide reports these limits. I could not confirm them against project documentation:
- Macros in a
.docmfile are preserved but never executed. There is no VBA interpreter. - There are no add-ins, no cloud storage and no real-time co-authoring.
- Spell checking is limited. The roadmap's progress log describes Polish and Portuguese proofing through the system's Hunspell dictionaries.
- Direct desktop printing arrived on October 12. The roadmap says driver-specific trays and pages-per-sheet are still missing.
Install and check downloads
Download from the official GitHub releases page or the project's site. The release assets include a SHA256SUMS.txt file, and the README says Windows installers and executables are code-signed. Compare your download's checksum against that file before running it.
One third-party listing snapshotted v0.6.1 as the latest release, published October 12, 2026. The GitHub releases page agrees, with v0.6.1 marked Latest on October 12. The guide says the project's website still listed v0.5.0 on October 13, so the site may lag GitHub.
Windows packages cover x64, x86 and arm64. The README suggests one fix if the app won't open on some graphics-driver setups: set the environment variable WGPU_BACKEND to vulkan. It is a suggestion from the project, not a guaranteed cure. The guide also lists open reports of a startup freeze with Intel UHD graphics and of saving without administrator rights on Windows 11. I did not verify those issue numbers.
A signed installer and a checksum are not a security audit. This is a week-old project that changes daily. Of the other claims, the guide says the browser build must be self-hosted. The README confirms a WebAssembly version exists but, in the text I saw, not that limitation.
The command line and MCP server
The more immediately practical part may be automation. The README describes a command line and an MCP server for inspecting and transforming documents without the graphical editor. The guide gives example commands such as wordcraft-cli convert, text and inspect. I could not check them against the release, so confirm them with the tool's own help first.
For jobs like bulk conversion or pulling text out of many .docx files, the editor's rough edges matter less. Even so, the same fidelity caveat applies to the output.
Who should try it
- Casual writers: Letters, theses and reports with simple structure are reasonable test material. Open copies, never originals, and save often.
- Anyone exchanging
.docxfiles with clients, offices or public bodies: Wait. Pagination and layout may shift, and the project hasn't tested that. - Macro, template and co-authoring users: WordCraft doesn't fit your workflow today.
- Admins: Treat it as an alpha experiment, not a managed deployment. There is no contractual support.
Whatever you try, save a copy in WordCraft and reopen it in Word or LibreOffice. Compare line breaks, tables and page counts before trusting the result.
Bottom line
WordCraft is a notable experiment: a Rust word processor with a nearly complete Word ribbon, built in days with heavy AI help. The question it hasn't answered is fidelity on real-world Word files. Until the project publishes that test, mature tools such as LibreOffice Writer are the safer choice for delivering work. WordCraft is worth watching and testing on copies.