I’ve been building WordCanvas - an embeddable, canvas-rendered Word editor you drop into any JS app. It’s MIT-licensed, and the whole reason it exists is the licensing situation in this category, so I figured this was the right place to share it.
Full information: <a href="https://doc-editor.forevka.dev/" target="_blank" rel="noopener nofollow">https://doc-editor.forevka.dev/</a>
It renders to canvas so it paginates like Word instead of guessing via contenteditable, imports/exports genuine .docx and page-accurate PDF entirely in the browser, and has zero runtime dependencies. No backend or document server needed to render - you only add a backend if you want live collaboration, and that’s opt-in. The same engine also runs headless on Node, so a server-generated file paginates identically to what the user sees on screen.
What works today: DOCX round-trip (styles, tables, fields, TOC), Word-accurate pagination, in-browser PDF, track changes + comments, RTL/bidi/CJK, math equations (MathML ↔ OMML), nested content controls, and multiple independent instances per page.
What it doesn’t do yet, to be upfront: no charts, and no enterprise support contract. The bundled CJK fallback covers common Chinese only – full CJK (Japanese, Korean, rarer hanzi) means supplying your own font.
GitHub (MIT): <a href="https://github.com/Forevka/canvas-word" target="_blank" rel="noopener nofollow">https://github.com/Forevka/canvas-word</a>
npm: <a href="https://www.npmjs.com/package/@forevka/wordcanvas" target="_blank" rel="noopener nofollow">https://www.npmjs.com/package/@forevka/wordcanvas</a>
Live editor, no signup: <a href="https://doc-editor.forevka.dev/examples/offline/" target="_blank" rel="noopener nofollow">https://doc-editor.forevka.dev/examples/offline/</a>
Longer writeup comparing it against 13 editors: <a href="https://forevka.dev/articles/best-embeddable-js-word-editors/" target="_blank" rel="noopener nofollow">https://forevka.dev/articles/best-embeddable-js-word-editors/</a>
I’m the author - happy to go deep on the architecture (the canvas layout engine, the isomorphic browser/Node pipeline, DOCX fidelity) and very open to feedback and criticism.
Bug reports and contributions welcome.

Forevka

WordCanvas is an MIT-licensed, embeddable Word editor that renders to HTML canvas instead of contenteditable, enabling Word-accurate pagination in the browser. It supports DOCX round-trip (styles, tables, fields, TOC), in-browser PDF export, track changes, comments, RTL/bidi/CJK, MathML/OMML equations, and nested content controls — all with zero runtime dependencies. The same rendering engine runs headless on Node.js for server-side generation with pixel-identical output. It positions itself as a free alternative to commercial options like Syncfusion, OnlyOffice, and DevExpress. Current limitations include no chart support and partial CJK font coverage.

I built browser-native Word editor as an alternative to Syncfusion / OnlyOffice / DevExpress