ArtCraft WordCraft, GridCraft & DeckCraft: Free Office Clones
Updated 2026-10-12
Short answer: WordCraft, GridCraft and DeckCraft are free, open-source apps from ArtCraft that rebuild Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint in Rust. They read and write DOCX, XLSX and PPTX, run on the desktop and in the browser, and are licensed under MIT or Apache-2.0. They were announced in October 2026 and are still pre-alpha: the developer's own estimate puts WordCraft at about 62% real feature parity with Word, and testing against real-world Office files has not started. Try them, but don't trust them with important documents yet.
None of the three apps is made by or affiliated with Microsoft. ArtCraft – the same team behind the ArtCraft Adobe alternatives such as PhotoCraft and EffectCraft – calls them "clean-room reimplementations", built from public specifications and from observing how the originals behave.
The three ArtCraft office apps at a glance
| App | Imitates | File format | Main features the developer lists |
|---|---|---|---|
| WordCraft | Word | DOCX | Ribbon, styles, tables, tracked changes, mail merge |
| GridCraft | Excel | XLSX | Formula bar, dynamic arrays, pivot tables, charts |
| DeckCraft | PowerPoint | PPTX | Slide masters, animations, presenter view |
All three share Rust code between a desktop version and a browser version (WebAssembly). The source code is on GitHub under the storytold organization. WordCraft version 0.3.0 was released on October 8, 2026.
How compatible is WordCraft with Word?
WordCraft looks like Word – ribbon, panes, familiar commands – but uses its own icons and artwork. Two numbers from the project's own roadmap (dated October 7, 2026) are easy to confuse:
- About 87% of commands: 354 of the 405 items in Word's ribbon and menus have a matching command.
- About 62% real feature parity: once you count how faithfully each feature behaves, the developer estimates WordCraft is at roughly 62%.
Neither number means that 87% (or 62%) of your DOCX files will open correctly. The roadmap says that charts, SmartArt and embedded OLE objects are dropped when a DOCX file is loaded and saved, that footnotes running across pages are not handled yet, and that testing against a collection of real-world documents has not begun. The Register tried WordCraft on an Arm-based Surface on October 8 and found it "worked pretty well", but advised keeping it away from production work.
The spelling dictionary and hyphenation come from Grady Ward's public-domain Moby word list, and fonts named in a document are shown with installed or open look-alike fonts.
GridCraft (Excel) and DeckCraft (PowerPoint)
GridCraft has a recalculation engine that only recomputes cells affected by a change, plus dynamic arrays and pivot tables. The developer counts 258 of Excel's 290 ribbon and menu items (about 89%). Important limits: VBA macros are not supported – GridCraft plans its own scripting feature that records and edits actions instead – there is no Power Query equivalent, and the XLSX round-trip tests so far mainly use files the team made itself.
DeckCraft is described as being in early development. The developer estimates about 79% feature coverage and about 62% fidelity. It handles common audio and video formats such as MP3, AAC and H.264, but WMA and WMV can be embedded without playing back. Again, round-trip tests have so far used the team's own slides.
Built to be driven by AI
The unusual part is that the apps are designed for AI agents as well as people. WordCraft exposes its commands (389 of them) through the ribbon, the keyboard, a command line and an MCP server, the protocol AI assistants use to talk to tools. An agent can open a document, select text, change formatting and save, and it can read the document's structure to check what it changed. GridCraft and DeckCraft use the same design, and the apps can run headless without opening a window.
ArtCraft's GitHub history credits Anthropic's Claude Opus 5.5 as a co-author of the code. The founder has said he uses AI heavily to write the apps while reviewing the work himself.
Should you switch from Microsoft Office?
Not yet, for anything that matters. A sensible way to use them in October 2026:
- Try WordCraft for simple new documents – letters, notes, drafts you create from scratch.
- Keep the originals of any DOCX, XLSX or PPTX file you open, because charts, SmartArt and embedded objects can be lost on save.
- Don't move Excel macros or Power Query workflows – they won't come across.
- Check the roadmap on each GitHub repository before relying on a feature; the projects change daily.
If you need a free, mature Office alternative today, established suites like LibreOffice or the free web versions of Office are safer. WordCraft, GridCraft and DeckCraft are worth watching because they move fast and are scriptable by AI.
Where to download WordCraft, GridCraft and DeckCraft
Use only the official sources: the Releases pages of storytold/wordcraft, storytold/gridcraft and storytold/deckcraft on GitHub, or getartcraft.com. Popular new open-source apps attract copycat download sites, so avoid third-party mirrors.
FAQ
Is WordCraft free? Yes. WordCraft, GridCraft and DeckCraft are open source and dual-licensed under MIT or Apache-2.0, with no subscription.
Is ArtCraft WordCraft the same as Google's Wordcraft? No. Google's Wordcraft was an AI-assisted story-writing research project. ArtCraft's WordCraft is a Word-style document editor released in October 2026.
Can WordCraft open DOCX files? Yes, it reads and writes DOCX, but charts, SmartArt and OLE objects are dropped on load and save, and real-world compatibility testing has not started yet.
Does GridCraft run Excel macros? No. VBA is out of scope; GridCraft plans its own scripting feature instead.
Is it legal to clone Microsoft Office? ArtCraft says it writes its own code from public specifications and observation and uses its own artwork. A UK technology lawyer told The Register that such "reimplementations" may be argued to be non-infringing, but that the outcome depends on the jurisdiction and could be litigated. This is not legal advice.
Who makes WordCraft? ArtCraft, the company founded by Brandon Thomas that also released open-source rebuilds of Photoshop, Illustrator, Premiere Pro, Lightroom, Acrobat, After Effects and InDesign.