Microsoft Publisher Is Retiring: What to Do Before October

Microsoft Publisher has been part of the Office family for more than 35 years. Small businesses, charities, and schools have used it to produce newsletters, flyers, brochures, business cards, and event programmes. From October 2026, that changes. Microsoft is retiring Publisher completely: it will be removed from Microsoft 365 subscriptions, and the standalone version will reach end of support at the same time.

This is not a routine end-of-support notice where the software carries on running without patches. Publisher will stop working once the retirement date passes. More importantly, any files saved in Publisher’s native format (.pub) will become inaccessible once the application is gone.

What exactly is happening?

From October 2026, Microsoft will remove Publisher from all Microsoft 365 plans. If your business is on a 365 subscription, Publisher will disappear from the apps you can install and use. If you have a standalone copy as part of Office 2021, that version will reach end of support on the same date as the rest of the Office 2021 suite (the October 2026 Patch Tuesday), meaning it will no longer receive security updates.

Patch Tuesday is the second Tuesday of every month, when Microsoft releases its scheduled security fixes. The October 2026 Patch Tuesday will be the last one Publisher ever receives.

The .pub file format is proprietary to Microsoft. No other mainstream application can open .pub files reliably, and because Publisher itself will be gone, those files will become effectively unreadable without action on your part.

Who does this affect?

If your business, team, or volunteers use Publisher for anything at all, you are affected. Those most at risk from the retirement are:

• Businesses and charities with years of templates, newsletters, or promotional materials stored as .pub files
• Organisations that have been producing regular publications in Publisher without considering alternatives
• Anyone on an older Office 2021 or Microsoft 365 subscription that has not been recently reviewed
• Staff who have learned Publisher and may not yet know it is going away

With roughly ten weeks until the retirement date, time is genuinely short — particularly if you have a large archive of files to convert.

What to do before October

The priority is to export your .pub files while Publisher is still installed and working. Do not leave this until the last moment.

Exporting your files from Publisher

Open each Publisher file and go to File > Export > Create PDF/XPS to save a PDF copy. This is the safest archiving option: the layout is preserved exactly as it appeared on screen. For documents you will still need to edit after October, go to File > Save As and choose Word Document (.docx). Be aware that layout will shift during conversion — particularly for anything with columns, text boxes, or custom page sizes — so plan for some reformatting.

For businesses with a large archive of .pub files, a batch conversion tool will save significant time. Third-party desktop applications such as PUB Converter can process multiple files at once and are a practical option if you have dozens or hundreds of documents to migrate.

Choosing a replacement application

Once your files are exported, you will need a tool for new creative documents. The right choice depends on what you used Publisher for:

• Microsoft Word or PowerPoint — Both are already included in your Microsoft 365 subscription. Word suits newsletters, letters, and text-heavy documents; PowerPoint is better for visual layouts, event programmes, and anything you would print as individual pages.
• Canva — A free (or low-cost) web-based design tool that has become the default choice for many small businesses and charities. Canva has templates for almost every format Publisher handled, and most people find it quicker to learn than Publisher.
• Adobe Express — A step up from Canva for organisations that need stronger brand control or produce materials at higher volume.
• LibreOffice Draw — A free desktop application that can open many .pub files with better layout fidelity than Word. Useful as a reference tool if you need to view an old file without converting it first.

What we suggest doing now

There are three things worth doing this month rather than waiting until closer to the deadline:

1. Take stock of how many .pub files exist across your business and identify which are still in active use.
2. Export the important ones — PDFs for archiving, Word or your chosen alternative’s format for anything still live.
3. Pick a replacement application and, if staff use Publisher regularly, arrange a short session to get them up to speed before October.

If you are on a Microsoft 365 plan that System Force IT manages for you, we can help identify Publisher usage across your organisation, guide you through the conversion process, and advise on which alternative fits your workflows best. We can also make sure your subscription is correctly configured for October so the transition is as smooth as possible.

For more about how we manage Microsoft 365 and the wider software estate for businesses, visit our managed IT services page or take a look at our cloud systems service. For a one-to-one conversation about your specific situation, get in touch with the team and we will be happy to help.