converting tiff images to word documents
does mac offer any programs like microsoft office document imaging which enables you to scan docs as tifs and convert them to word?
Microsoft would have to offer a TIFF importer within Microsoft Word for its documents. If your issue is loading Word documents within TextEdit, yes, that editor does not support images. You are better off if you don't want to use Microsoft Word itself, to use NeoOffice or iWork's Pages if you want to incorporate images in Word documents.
P.S. Mac is the name of the operating system, and the computers that run the operating system by Apple Inc. So questioning "Does Mac..." doesn't make any more sense than asking "Does Experion..."