| i used word for a large project (undergrad project report of 100+ pages with 4 member team) in 1997 and even then word had features for most (if not all) of the items in your list: * large docs can be handled by splitting them into master-child documents. You can format across all child documents from the master. * figures can be edited in-place or embedded from original source. * collaboration was possible then with child and shared docs, it should only be better now. * citations and refs are supported, although I dont know if all styles of citations are. * templates have been in word from a long time and imo are quite natural because they're prototype-based (ie, you can make any document AFTER you create it into a template. other documents that use that as a template inherit all styles and so forth) * the visual "View changes"mode in word is quite natural and even allows for some offline discourse with your collaborators as each user's comments and changes are marked with a different color and comments are allowed. *words symbol editor (which also existed pre-1997) is quite up to the task of most equations (again, imo; i've not done a lot of hairy equations) word is just a better tool for large documents, and i say this asn ardent anti-ide guy. my preferred setup for code documentation is sublime text and markdown; but when you want to Just write a document, word it is. |
Track changes is the pest and its use has actually been banned at all companies I worked for. It only works when you want to show the most recent changes but it actually breaks standard document comparison which means you can no longer compare version 1 with version 3 of a document. I won't even comment on how horrendous the diff view in word is, even on a qhd display the 4 small panes you get are so confusing that I'd rather diff it manually with 2 documents open aide by side.