You mean learn yet another tool? And I have to BUY it too?
Word should be able to do images decently. It is not unreasonable to expect. People use MS Word to write books and papers and those sometimes have pictures in them.
People often get a suite with stuff (sometimes with publisher included), or 365. Schools will often have it too. Regardless its two seperate programs for two seperate purposes. Conplaining about why one doesnt do something it wasnt primarily designed to do is using the wrong tool for the job.
Of course they dont need to, but its kinda dumb to complain about a feature in word in a usecase its not intended for. Word has pretty strict guidelines on how its formatted. Complaining on why it doesnt work the way I want it to is like complaining if a flathead screwdriver isnt turning a phillips screw very well. It can, but its limited on what it can and cant do.
'People use X to do Y' doesn't mean X should be good at doing Y. Word is a quick and dirty word processor, not a book publishing software.
You mean learn yet another tool?
Yes. Let's say you want to push screws into a groove. You can use a hammer, but it won't be good at it. The better option is to learn how to use a screwdriver.
Positioning a picture is considered publishing? It is a super basic function.
It is like saying cropping with paint is wrong and we need Photoshop to do that.
Positioning pictures and having control of the text box for proper formatting is part of publisher. The point people are complaining about is how moving the picture breaks the text box formatting.
Publisher is more limiting in many more ways than word and is very old in the tooth.
I have luck using word and publisher together to make some things. Recently I worked with designers to make a workflow for creating and updating a catalog for a customer, that used excel and publisher like an extreme version of mailmerge in word.
All of this stuff is antiquated but people have access to these tools so sometimes we make stuff in them because of who is using it.