Microsoft is retiring Publisher. According to Microsoft, subscribers to Microsoft 365 can't use Publisher after 1 October 2026, and support for the perpetual versions (bought once, such as Publisher 2021 and Office LTSC 2021) ends on 13 October 2026. Copies that are already installed may keep working for a while, but without fixes, and Microsoft advises converting publications to other formats before 1 October 2026.
What Microsoft suggests, and where it gets hard
Microsoft's own advice is to open each file in Publisher and save it as a PDF, or to use a script for bulk export. Both need a working copy of Publisher, and one file at a time takes a long time for an archive of newsletters going back twenty years.
Converting a whole archive here
- Put the folders with your
.pubfiles in a ZIP. On Windows, right-click the folder and choose Send to, Compressed (zipped) folder. - Upload the ZIP and choose Everything: a PDF, an editable ODG, a picture of every page and the pictures inside, for every publication.
- Download one ZIP with the same folders, plus a report as a web page and a spreadsheet.
Up to 500 publications fit in one job; larger archives can be split into several ZIPs.
Check the flagged files while you still can
The conversion does not need Publisher, but a few things can look different, most of all fonts that are not available here. The report lists every font of every file, says which ones kept their letter widths, and marks the files worth a look with Converted, please check. Open those in Publisher while you still have it, and compare. Files from Publisher 95 and 97 lose their fonts and text colours, and files from Publisher 1.0 and 2.0 can't be converted; the report names them too, so you can save them again in a newer Publisher while that is still possible.
Which formats to keep
- PDF to read, print and share. For archives, choose PDF/A under More options.
- ODG to edit later in LibreOffice Draw, an open-source program for Windows, Mac and Linux.
- Pictures inside to reuse the photos and logos without cutting them out of a page.
More about what this tool reads and writes: Publisher File Converter.