The TextEdit application on the Mac is far more powerful than most "basic" text editors that come standard with computers. Unlike most basic text editors, TextEdit can actually read and write Microsoft Word files. Yeah, you can't do all the fancy formatting that is capable in Word, but if you need to edit a Microsoft Word file and you don't have Microsoft Word, you can use TextEdit to edit the file and you can save the file in Word format so that it can then be opened by other users who do have Microsoft Word.