The End of Microsoft Publisher

For over 30 years, Microsoft Publisher has been many people's go-to tool for newsletters, brochures, flyers, and other marketing material. Now, Microsoft has confirmed that Publisher will reach end of life in October 2026, marking the end of an era for a long standing applications in the Office suite.

If your company still relies on Publisher, get planning now, see below how.

What's happening to Publisher

Publisher will no longer be included in Microsoft 365 after October 2026.
Microsoft 365 subscribers will no longer be able to open or edit Publisher files using Microsoft Publisher.

This is more than just not receiving updates anymore, Publisher will no longer be available.

Why is Microsoft retiring Publisher?

For a while now, many of the features that were once unique to Publisher and made it the desktop publishing (DTP) tool of choice, are now available in other tools and apps such as:

Microsoft Word
Microsoft PowerPoint
Microsoft Designer
Microsoft Create (via Copilot)

These tools are all modern cloud available apps that are much more geared to Microsoft's current vision. Publisher isn't available in the cloud and would require significant work to make it cloud supported as well as adding support for modern requirements.

The risks to your company

If you still have files that your company needs that in made in Publisher, act now!

From October, you simply won't be able to open those files. Open them now.

What you should do now?

Search you PC, your network drives, SharePoint, Onedrive for publisher files. The easiest way is: search for *.pub

How do I convert Publisher files?

Open your file in Publisher and save it as a different file type by using the Save As command.

Save the file as a PDF

This will allow you to still see the file as well as print it.

If you still need to edit the file, take that PDF and open it with Word, it will be converted in to a Word document. This process isn't always perfect, but it is better than just losing the publisher file.

Microsoft also have a support document detailing the steps including a script how to batch process Publisher files to PDF.