WordCraft

Writing and document design; an open-source, clean-room reimplementation of Microsoft Word, rebuilt in pure Rust.

A fast, open-source word processor with the Word workflow you already know: the ribbon, styles, tables, track changes, references and mail merge. It reads and writes .docx, runs natively on macOS, Windows, Linux and BSD, and in the browser via WebAssembly.
By the ArtCraft team.

WordCraft on getartcraft.com · ArtCraft · All Crafting Apps

WordCraft with the Home tab of the ribbon open over a two-page document titled The Open Studio Handbook. The Navigation pane on the left lists the document's headings, the Styles gallery shows live previews of Normal, Heading 1, Title and Subtitle, and a word in the first paragraph is selected.
_{The Open Studio Handbook, WordCraft's built-in sample: the ribbon, live Styles gallery, rulers and the Navigation pane.}

> [!NOTE] > **ArtCraft is a community of artists from all walks of life.** Painters, photographers, > filmmakers, illustrators, designers, animators, hobbyists, and people who picked up a pencil > last week. If you make things, you're one of us. **[Come say hi on Discord](https://discord.gg/artcraft).**

A tour · Why WordCraft · What works today · Quick start · For agents · Architecture · Roadmap · Downloads · The Crafting Apps · License and credits

## A tour Every screenshot below is WordCraft itself, rendered offscreen by its own UI test harness (`cargo run -p wordcraft-ui-egui --example ui_shot`).

_{Review. Track changes, comment balloons in the margin, accept and reject, spelling and grammar as you type.}	_{References. Tables of contents, footnotes, citations in APA, MLA, Chicago or IEEE, index and captions.}
_{Design. Themes, style sets, paragraph spacing, watermarks, page colour and borders.}	_{Dark mode with formatting marks, and the Insert tab: tables, pictures, shapes, links, headers, footers, fields and symbols.}
_{Layout. Drop caps, text wrapping around pictures and shapes, automatic hyphenation, line numbers and page borders.}
_{File. Start from a template, open recent documents, edit properties, export to PDF and other formats.}

## Why WordCraft - **Familiar.** Word's ribbon tabs, groups, shortcuts and behaviour: Enter continues a list, Tab demotes it, Ctrl/⌘+B bolds the word under the caret, the Styles gallery previews styles live, F4 repeats, F7 checks spelling, F8 extends the selection. - **Your files.** Opens and saves .docx (OOXML), and also .odt, .rtf, .html, .md, .tex (LaTeX), .txt; opens Word 97-2003 .doc; exports PDF with real, selectable text, links and bookmarks. - **Fast.** Paragraph layout is cached, so typing in a 188-page document re-lays it out in about 1.4 ms; pages render on demand. - **Everywhere.** One Rust codebase for macOS, Windows, Linux, BSD and the web. No Electron, no Tauri: native [egui](https://github.com/emilk/egui) on the GPU. - **Built for agents.** Every action is a command with an id. The same 422 commands drive the ribbon, keyboard shortcuts, the command search, a command-line tool, a JSON control channel and an MCP server. - **Private.** Spelling, grammar and everything else work offline. - **Open.** MIT OR Apache-2.0. Clean-room: built from public specifications and observation, with every asset original or openly licensed. ## What works today | Area | Highlights | |---|---| | **Writing** | Fast typing with IME, smart quotes, AutoCorrect, list autoformat (`* `, `1. `), dashes; word, sentence, paragraph selection; drag-select; clipboard with formatting; undo/redo; find and replace with regex | | **Formatting** | Fonts, sizes, bold/italic/underline styles, strike, sub/superscript, caps, highlight, colours, character spacing, Format Painter, Change Case, Clear Formatting | | **Paragraphs** | Alignment, indents (draggable on the ruler), spacing, line spacing, tabs with leaders, borders, shading, keep with next, widow/orphan control | | **Styles** | Built-in style set, live gallery, Styles pane, create/modify/update styles, style sets, themes | | **Lists** | Bullets, numbering, multilevel, restart, set value, custom formats | | **Tables** | Insert by grid, merge/split, styles with banded rows, borders, shading, header rows repeated across pages, rows that split across pages, sort, formulas, text ↔ table | | **Pages** | Margins, orientation, size, columns, page/column/section breaks, headers and footers (first page, odd/even), page numbers, watermark, page borders, line numbers, vertical alignment, drop caps, automatic hyphenation | | **Objects** | Pictures (resize, crop, recolour, brightness/contrast, transparency, background removal, picture styles, rotate), shapes, text boxes, floating position with text wrapping (square, top and bottom, behind or in front of text) | | **References** | Table of contents, footnotes and endnotes, citations and bibliography (APA, MLA, Chicago, IEEE), captions, table of figures, cross-references, index, table of authorities | | **Review** | Spelling and grammar with suggestions, thesaurus, word count, comments in margin balloons or a pane, track changes, accept/reject, compare documents, restrict editing, accessibility checker, document inspector | | **Mailings** | Mail merge from CSV, merge fields, address block, greeting line, rules, preview, finish to a document; envelopes and labels | | **View** | Print layout, web layout, draft, read mode, focus, zoom, one/multiple pages, page width, Navigation pane, rulers, gridlines, dark mode; interface in English, 简体中文, 繁體中文, 日本語, Português (Brasil), Español, Українська, Српски / Srpski, Eesti, Türkçe or Русский (follows the system language by default) | | **Files** | .docx read/write (opens in Word), Word 97-2003 .doc import, PDF export, .odt, .rtf, .html, .md, .tex, .txt import/export, page images | The honest picture, area by area, is in [ROADMAP.md](ROADMAP.md), the [parity assessment](docs/target-app-parity.md) and the generated [feature checklist](docs/parity-checklist.md). ## Quick start ```sh git clone https://github.com/storytold/wordcraft cd wordcraft cargo run --release -p wordcraft -- --sample # the desktop app with the sample document cargo run --release -p wordcraft -- report.docx # open a document ``` Command line: ```sh wordcraft-cli convert report.docx report.pdf # docx, pdf, odt, rtf, html, md, tex, txt, png wordcraft-cli text report.docx # plain text wordcraft-cli inspect report.docx # structure as JSON wordcraft-cli run --template sample \ --cmd 'select.text={"text":"Membership"}' --cmd format.bold --save out.docx ``` Web: `cd apps/wordcraft-web && trunk serve`, then open . ## For agents: CLI and MCP WordCraft was designed to be driven by people *and* by AI agents. ```sh claude mcp add wordcraft -- wordcraft-cli mcp # headless documents wordcraft --control 7981 & # or drive the running app… claude mcp add wordcraft-app -- wordcraft-cli mcp --connect 127.0.0.1:7981 ``` Tools include `list_commands`, `execute`, `batch`, `type_text`, `select_text`, `inspect_document`, `render_page`, `save_document`, and, with a running app, `screenshot`, `click` and `key`. Agents can check their work through `inspect_document` without screenshots. See [docs/mcp.md](docs/mcp.md) and the [control protocol](docs/control-protocol.md). Macros record any sequence of commands and play it back (`tools.recordMacro`, `tools.macros`). ## Logs The desktop app writes its log records to standard error and to `logs/wordcraft.log` next to its preferences: on Linux `$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/wordcraft/logs/` (by default `~/.config/wordcraft/logs/`), on macOS `~/Library/Application Support/WordCraft/logs/`, on Windows `%APPDATA%\WordCraft\logs\`. A start from a desktop menu or the Dock has no terminal, so this file is what to attach to a bug report: unreadable parts of a .docx, pictures or fonts a PDF export had to leave out and panics the command guard recovered from land there. Each launch moves the previous log to `wordcraft.1.log` (and that one to `wordcraft.2.log`), so the log of a run that crashed survives the next start; a log stops growing at 16 MiB. `--version` writes no file, and runs with `WORDCRAFT_NO_PREFS` (agents' test runs) log to standard error only. Document text is never logged; a panic message leaves out the text it quotes. By default WordCraft's own crates log at `info` and everything else at `warn`. `RUST_LOG` replaces that with env_logger-style directives, for example `RUST_LOG=debug`, `RUST_LOG=warn,wordcraft_docx=trace` or `RUST_LOG=info,wgpu_core=warn`; a directive ending in `*` covers every target starting with it (`wordcraft*=debug`). The logger is `apps/wordcraft/src/logging.rs`. ## Architecture | Layer | Crate | Job | |---|---|---| | L0 | `wordcraft-geom` | units and measurements | | L1 | `wordcraft-doc`, `wordcraft-fonts`, `wordcraft-proof` | document model and editing; fonts and shaping; spelling, grammar, hyphenation | | L2 | `wordcraft-layout`, `wordcraft-docx`, `wordcraft-formats` | line breaking, pagination, tables, notes, hit testing; OOXML; ODT/RTF/HTML/Markdown/TXT | | L3 | `wordcraft-render`, `wordcraft-pdf` | rasteriser (vello_cpu); PDF (krilla) | | L4 | `wordcraft-engine` | session, undo, 422 commands, Word feature catalog | | L5 | `wordcraft-mcp` | MCP server | | L6 | `wordcraft-ui-egui` | the Word-style front end (swappable) | | apps | `wordcraft`, `wordcraft-cli`, `wordcraft-web` | desktop, command line, browser | `cargo xtask ci` runs formatting, clippy, ~800 tests, the asset-attribution check, the layering check and the wasm build. Contributor and agent instructions: [AGENTS.md](AGENTS.md). ## Roadmap WordCraft is in **alpha**. It covers 88% of Word's ribbon features with commands today; counting depth, file fidelity, stability and the rest, we estimate it is about 60% of the way to replacing all of Word for real work, about 55% for a typical professional's weekly work and about 63% for everyday essentials. Beta needs testing against real-world .docx files, keeping charts and SmartArt through a round trip, pagination closer to Word's, a stability sweep and native printing. Details and estimates: [ROADMAP.md](ROADMAP.md) and [where we fall short](docs/gaps.md). ## Downloads **Download WordCraft** from GitHub: the [latest release](https://github.com/storytold/wordcraft/releases/latest) has every build listed below, and [all releases](https://github.com/storytold/wordcraft/releases) has earlier versions and their notes. `` in the file names is the version number, and `SHA256SUMS.txt` lists a checksum for every file. ### Windows | Build | Installer | Portable | |---|---|---| | x64 (64-bit Intel/AMD) | `wordcraft--windows-x64.msi` | `wordcraft--windows-x64-portable.zip` | | arm64 (Snapdragon and other ARM PCs) | `wordcraft--windows-arm64.msi` | `wordcraft--windows-arm64-portable.zip` | | x86 (32-bit) | `wordcraft--windows-x86.msi` | `wordcraft--windows-x86-portable.zip` | Installers and executables are code-signed. **If the app doesn't open on Windows:** the desktop app initializes only DirectX 12 by default. Letting wgpu also create an OpenGL instance can crash some graphics drivers (AMD's `atio6axx.dll`) before the window appears, so the app would flash in Task Manager and quit. `WGPU_BACKEND` overrides the default for troubleshooting (for example `dx12` or `vulkan`). In PowerShell, from the folder containing the executable: ```powershell $env:WGPU_BACKEND = "vulkan" & .\wordcraft.exe Remove-Item Env:WGPU_BACKEND # restore the default for later launches ``` An explicit `gl` override can bring the driver crash back on affected systems. The macOS, Linux and web backend defaults are unchanged. **If the app is slow on an older Windows PC:** when DirectX 12 finds no graphics card with a driver for it (for example Intel 4th-generation graphics on Windows 11), it only offers Microsoft's software renderer, which draws every frame on the processor. In that case WordCraft uses OpenGL instead, without setting anything. The log file records the choice (lines starting with `graphics:`). `WGPU_BACKEND` still overrides it, e.g. `$env:WGPU_BACKEND = "gl"` or `"dx12"`. ### macOS | Build | File | Notes | |---|---|---| | App, universal (Apple silicon + Intel) | `wordcraft--macos-universal.dmg` | Signed and notarized | | Command-line tool, universal | `wordcraft-cli--macos-universal.zip` | Signed and notarized | ### Linux | Format | x86_64 | aarch64 (ARM64) | Notes | |---|---|---|---| | AppImage | `wordcraft--linux-x86_64.AppImage` | `wordcraft--linux-aarch64.AppImage` | Runs anywhere; updates itself with [AppImageUpdate](https://github.com/AppImageCommunity/AppImageUpdate) (`.zsync` files) | | Flatpak | `wordcraft--linux-x86_64.flatpak` | `wordcraft--linux-aarch64.flatpak` | Sandboxed; `flatpak install --user ` | | Debian/Ubuntu | `wordcraft--linux-x86_64.deb` | `wordcraft--linux-aarch64.deb` | | | Fedora/RHEL/openSUSE | `wordcraft--linux-x86_64.rpm` | `wordcraft--linux-aarch64.rpm` | | | Tarball | `wordcraft--linux-x86_64.tar.gz` | `wordcraft--linux-aarch64.tar.gz` | Unpack anywhere | RISC-V (riscv64): `wordcraft--linux-riscv64.tar.gz`, a tarball cross-compiled for glibc 2.39+ (Ubuntu 24.04, Debian 13 and newer). ### FreeBSD | Build | File | |---|---| | x86_64 | `wordcraft--freebsd-x86_64.tar.gz` | ### Web (WebAssembly) | Build | File | Notes | |---|---|---| | Static site | `wordcraft-web-.zip` | Runs in a modern browser; host it on any static server | ## The Crafting Apps WordCraft is one of the **Crafting Apps**: free, open-source creative tools from the [ArtCraft](https://getartcraft.com/) team, each written from scratch in Rust and each able to stand on its own. | | App | What it's for | Code | Learn more | |:-:|---|---|---|---| |

| **PhotoCraft** | Image editing: layers, masks, type and real PSD files | [GitHub](https://github.com/storytold/photocraft) | [Website](https://getartcraft.com/apps/photocraft) | |

| **WordCraft** | **Writing and document design · you are here** | [GitHub](https://github.com/storytold/wordcraft) | [Website](https://getartcraft.com/apps/wordcraft) | And [**ArtCraft**](https://getartcraft.com/) itself, our AI image and video studio for artists who want real control.

Come make things with us

Our Discord is where artists of every kind hang out: people who paint, shoot, draw, cut film, set type, and people still figuring out what they like to make. Share what you're working on, ask for help, tell us what's broken, or tell us what you wish these tools could do. Whatever your medium and however long you've been at it, you're welcome here.

discord.gg/artcraft · getartcraft.com · The Crafting Apps · WordCraft

## License and credits WordCraft is dual-licensed under [MIT](LICENSE-MIT) or [Apache-2.0](LICENSE-APACHE), at your option. Copyright (c) 2026 ArtCraft Team and the WordCraft contributors. Required notices are in [NOTICE](NOTICE). Bundled fonts, icons, images and other assets keep their own open licenses; each one is listed with its author, source and license in [ATTRIBUTION.md](ATTRIBUTION.md). The spelling dictionary and hyphenation come from Grady Ward's public-domain Moby Hyphenator II word list. The sample documents and templates are original text written for WordCraft. The ArtCraft name, wordmark and logos in [`docs/brand/`](docs/brand/) are trademarks of the ArtCraft Team and are not covered by this license. They may be used only unmodified, and only as part of this repository and WordCraft, under [`docs/brand/LICENSE-brand.txt`](docs/brand/LICENSE-brand.txt). Forks and modified versions must remove them. _{Microsoft and Microsoft Word are trademarks of the Microsoft group of companies. Adobe, Photoshop, Illustrator, Premiere Pro, Lightroom, Acrobat, After Effects and InDesign are trademarks or registered trademarks of Adobe Inc. in the United States and/or other countries. WordCraft is an independent, open-source project and is not affiliated with, sponsored by or endorsed by Microsoft Corporation or Adobe Inc.; these names are used only to describe the workflows it is compatible with.}

_{Made by the ArtCraft team and community.}