Microsoft Word Layout issues

Before Word 2010 (Word 14) for Windows, the program was unable to handle ligatures defined in TrueType fonts those ligature glyphs with Unicode codepoints may be inserted manually, but are not recognized by Word for what they are, breaking spell checking, while custom ligatures present in the font are not accessible at all. Since Word 2010, the program now has advanced typesetting features which can be enabled: OpenType ligatures, kerning, and hyphenation. Other layout deficiencies of Word include the inability to set crop marks or thin spaces. Various third-party workaround utilities have been developed. Similarly, combining diacritics are handled poorly: Word 2003 has "improved support", but many diacritics are still misplaced, even if a precomposed glyph is present in the font.Additionally, as of Word 2002, Word does automatic font substitution when it finds a character in a document that does not exist in the font specified. It is impossible to deactivate this, making it very difficult to spot when a glyph used is missing from the font in use. If "Mirror margins" or "Different odd and even" are enabled, Word will not allow the user to freshly begin page numbering an even page after a section break (and vice versa). Instead it inserts a mandatory blank page which cannot be removed.

In Word 2004 for Macintosh, support of complex scripts was inferior even to Word 97, and Word 2004 does not support Apple Advanced Typography features like ligatures or glyph variants.