Microsoft Word has also been able to function as a blogging tool for some time, so this is a test from Word 2016 with a picture of a Herdwick sheep.
Figure 1: a sheep
It's good, but not as good as OpenLiveWriter. For example, image handling isn't as easy (e.g. we cannot add alt text or title on the img element) and I've not found a way to edit the HTML source directly.
Both editors can do tables, and while the handling is rather different they have similar limitations – neither editor seems to be able to create <th> elements (headings):
|
Type
|
Size
|
Price
|
|
Foo
|
27
|
£6
|
|
Bar
|
31
|
£8
|
The range of "Insert" tools is rather different, each having strengths for some purposes. Here's OLW:
And here's Word:
While the range of tools is greater, they are less helpful for blogging, I'm also not convinced they will all work when posting through the MetaWebLog API.
To test this, let's try some SmartArt (a labelled pyramid):
And a chart:
Some symbols: ₯©℅ﷺ
A lightning bolt shape:
And some WordArt (this should appear blue with reflections below the letters):
Now let's "publish" and see what happens!
Overall, I'd probably use Word if OLW didn't exist, but it's capabilities are less web-friendly.