I have been pushing Word 95 to the limit with some very complex macros and 
cross-references, and we have reached a point where we must upgrade to 2003 
(trust me 2007 ain't gonna get a look-in, yech!) We have temporarily solved the 
problem by generating PDF files.

I have to draw up forms, print them, reimport them, and then overlay sample 
text. For vertical spacing, I use specially formated CR/LF characters of 1pt to 
push an item down into the correct position and in all versions OOo I have 
tried, this is nigh on impossible.

In a nutshell: PLEASE MAKE THE CR/LF CHARACTER SELECTABLE, EDITABLE, DELETABLE 
AND INSERTABLE.

It is very frequent that I have to go through a document replacing   ^p^p   
with   ^p   or two spaces with a single space or tab + space with tab only. MS 
do not "own"   ^p   as the search marker for CR/LF (or then again, most of the 
their search markers). It comes from DOS Word version 1, which never hit the 
market. MS took it over and released version 2.

Using   ~$   to find empty paragraphs is extremely laborious, particularly when 
dealing with documents of 500 pages or more.

This equally applies to:

^p paragraph (CR/LF)
^l new line inside a paragraph (e.g., address)
^s non-breaking space which should still be expandable in a justified line
   which MS fails to do.
^t tab
^n n-dash
^m m-dash
^h non breaking hyphen
^b page Break
^d division break (DOS Word terminology--WinWord calls it a Section Break)
^c column break

etc.