Microsoft Publisher discontinued after 35 years

Microsoft has officially ended support for its desktop publishing software, Microsoft Publisher, after approximately 35 years of service since its initial release in 1991. The discontinuation means that some users may encounter problems opening their .pub files within Microsoft 365.

Microsoft 365 subscribers were previously notified that support for Publisher would cease on October 1, 2026. The support lifecycle for perpetual license versions, such as Office 2021 and Office LTSC 2021, also concluded on October 13. For users with permanent licenses, Publisher can still be installed and used, but will no longer receive updates or bug fixes.

Microsoft advises users to locate their .pub files on local computers or cloud storage like OneDrive and SharePoint. They recommend saving these files as PDFs using a functional version of Publisher before the support deadline. The company acknowledges that converting these files to other formats, such as Word, can lead to inaccuracies, especially for documents with overlapping elements or extensive graphics.

To assist with batch conversions, Microsoft provides a PowerShell script named Convert-PubFileToPDF.ps1. This script can export .pub files within a specified folder to PDF format, with support for recursive processing of subfolders. However, files converted using this method will lose their native Publisher editing capabilities.