Re: Emacs as a word processor

[yarnton]

You could probably implement all these functions with a minimal layer on top of 
org-mode, as it does support a lot of functionality already. Interoperability 
with docx and odt is harder unless you go down the rabbit hole of getting close 
to feature parity with them. Otherwise it will be one-way only.

IMHO, since Emacs is mostly plain text oriented it is going to be hard to go 
beyond supporting what Org already offers. Which is quite a lot: Hierarchical 
structure, different text formats, figures, tables, footnotes, metadata, very 
flexible exporting capabilities...

I would rather see Org getting more polished, friendlier and better documented. 
It's pretty well known and it has the potential to attract more Emacs users 
because it offers some unique features. But people tend to get scared away by 
it's apparent complexity. And frankly, the basics are really simple.

One area that could benefit from some improvements is reference management. Org 
offers footnotes, which are not quite the same as proper first-class references 
or citations.