Quick answer: Microsoft removed Publisher from Microsoft 365 on 1 October 2026, and support for Publisher 2021 ends on 13 October 2026. We converted 25 real .pub files with the free LibreOffice converter. The text came through intact in every file we could check against a reference, simple layouts converted well, and multi-column newsletters and Publisher 98 tables did not. Two files reported success and produced no PDF at all. Our free converter, built on what we learned, is at publisher.devaland.com.
The deadline, from the sources
Microsoft 365 subscribers can no longer open or edit .pub files in Publisher since 1 October 2026 (Windows Latest, Computerworld). An installed perpetual copy of Publisher 2021 keeps working after support ends on 13 October, but with no more updates or security fixes (Microsoft Q&A).
The people this hurts are not designers. One question on Microsoft's own forum comes from a teacher with thousands of Publisher documents that get updated every year with new names and dates. Schools, churches, clubs and small offices made newsletters, certificates and posters in Publisher for twenty years.
What we tested
We did not want to recommend a converter from its own marketing page, so we ran one on real files first.
- The files: 21 Publisher documents from the Apache POI project's test data, covering Publisher 98, 2000, the 2003 era and 2010, including a brochure and a four-page newsletter, plus 4 files from LibreOffice's own Publisher test suite. 25 real documents in all, and 3 deliberately corrupted fuzzing files on top.
- The converter: LibreOffice 24.2, whose Draw component reads .pub files through the libmspub library. It is free and runs without Publisher.
- The measure: four of the POI files ship with a text file of what the document says, in both a 2003-era and a 2010 version. For those 8 files we counted how many expected words appear in the converted PDF, and in what order. Everything else we checked by rendering every page and looking at it.
What survived
| What we checked | Result |
|---|---|
| Text, against the reference files | 8 of 8 files complete, every expected word present, order similarity 0.99 to 1.00 |
| Simple documents (text boxes, a table, hyperlinks) | Converted well |
| Two-page brochure with pictures and coloured panels | Converted well, one caption slightly overlapping a picture |
| Four-page newsletter with linked columns | Text present, but columns overlap: not usable without repair |
| Publisher 98 sample | Text present, but a table lost its contents and Arial came out as a serif font |
| Three corrupted files | No output, no crash, no hang |
So the honest summary is: your words are safe, and your layout depends on how ambitious it was.
The trap: success that is not a PDF
Two large files from LibreOffice's test suite were the surprise. The converter finished, reported success with exit code 0, and wrote nothing. There was no PDF, no error message, nothing in the output folder.
If you convert a folder of files with a script and trust the exit code, those files simply go missing from the result, and nothing tells you. Check that every output file exists and has pages. We now do that in our own tool, and a job only counts as done when a real PDF with at least one page is on disk.
The first conversion in a fresh environment was also slow enough to time out, while every later one took seconds. If you run a batch, convert one small file first to warm the converter up.
Treat .pub files from strangers as untrusted
Two of the files in LibreOffice's test suite are proof-of-concept crash files published on Exploit-DB (for example EDB-22310, a Publisher 2010 crash), kept there so the importer is tested against hostile input. A .pub file is a complex binary format, and the code that reads it is a target. If you convert files sent to you by other people, do it on a machine that matters little, keep the converter updated, and never on a server holding anything else. Our converter runs in an isolated container that cannot open a single outbound connection.
What to do with your files this week
- If you still have Publisher 2021 or older installed, export the documents you care about to PDF now, while it still opens them. Keep the original .pub files as well.
- If you no longer have Publisher, a free converter will give you the text and, for simple documents, the layout. Check every page before you throw anything away.
- For documents you will keep editing, a PDF is a dead end. Convert to an editable format (LibreOffice Draw's ODG opens free) or have the layout rebuilt in a tool you will still have in five years.
- For newsletters and archives, budget for some hand repair. Automatic conversion keeps the words; multi-column layouts need a person.
The free converter
We put the converter we tested online at publisher.devaland.com. It returns a PDF and an editable ODG copy, shows a preview of every page so you can see the result before you rely on it, needs no account, and deletes files after 30 minutes. It is not made by or affiliated with Microsoft.
If a document comes out wrong, a typesetter with over twenty years of page layout can repair it to match the original, from 79 USD per document of up to 4 pages, excluding VAT. Whole archives get a fixed price in writing.
Originally published on devaland.com: Microsoft Publisher Is Retiring. We Converted 25 Real .pub Files to See What Survives
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