Microsoft removed Publisher from Microsoft 365 on October 1, 2026, and support for the perpetual versions (Publisher 2021 and earlier) ends October 13, 2026. If you run IT for a church, school, nonprofit, or small office, you have probably already had the call: “Publisher is gone, and I need to get the bulletin out by Friday.”
This guide covers what a Microsoft Publisher replacement needs to do for the people you support, what Microsoft recommends, and how to keep existing .pub files open and editable without Publisher.
What Microsoft recommends, and the gap it leaves
Microsoft points Publisher users to Word, PowerPoint, and Microsoft Designer for new work. That’s reasonable for a new flyer. It doesn’t help with the files people already have. Word and PowerPoint can’t open a .pub file, so every newsletter template, bulletin, directory, and certificate built in Publisher has to be rebuilt from scratch.
For most offices, those existing files are the real problem. A church office may have ten years of weekly bulletins built on one template. A school office has forms, programs, and signage that several people edit. Rebuilding all of that in a new tool takes weeks, and the results rarely match.
Your options for a Microsoft Publisher replacement
- Keep running Publisher 2021 or earlier. It still opens .pub files, but it stops getting security updates after October 13, 2026, and you can’t buy new licenses. It works as a stopgap, not a plan.
- Rebuild in Word, PowerPoint, Canva, or Affinity. These are fine for new work. Affinity can import some .pub files, and LibreOffice Draw and Scribus can import them too, but all of them re-flow the layout, so text moves, boxes shift, and pages need cleanup.
- Convert the archive to PDF. Good for files you only need to read or print, and a smart step for any archive. Not useful for a template someone edits every week.
- Use an app that opens .pub files natively. This is the gap we built PubKeep to fill.
How to open a .pub file without Publisher
PubKeep is a desktop app for Windows and Mac that reads the Publisher format directly. To open a .pub file without Publisher:
- Install PubKeep. On Windows, get it from the Microsoft Store or pubkeep.com. On a Mac, download it from pubkeep.com.
- Start the free 7-day trial, or enter a license key.
- Choose Open and pick the .pub file, or double-click it.
The file opens page for page as it looked in Publisher, with the same text boxes, pictures, master pages, and fold-over booklet layouts. There’s nothing to convert first. Our guide on how to open a .pub file without Microsoft Publisher compares every method side by side.
How to edit a .pub file without Publisher
Opening is only half of it. The people you support need to change next week’s dates, swap a photo, and print. In PubKeep they edit the file the way they did in Publisher: click into a text box and type, move and resize objects, edit tables and Word Art, run a mail merge from Excel or CSV, then print or export a PDF.
One thing to set expectations on: PubKeep reads .pub files and saves your work in its own .pubk format. It doesn’t save back to .pub. For most offices that’s fine, since nobody else needs to open the file in Publisher anymore. See how to edit a .pub file without Publisher for a step-by-step walkthrough.
Rolling it out to an office
- Licensing. A license is a one-time purchase, not a subscription: $99 for one computer or $159 for two. Volume licenses cover 5 computers for $395 or 10 for $699, with one license key for every computer.
- Updates. Every license includes a year of updates, and you keep the version you have after that.
- Invoices and purchase orders. For more than 10 computers, an invoice, or a PO, email [email protected].
- Archives. If a department has thousands of old .pub files, PubKeep Converter turns a whole folder into exact PDFs in one pass. The first 3 files are free.
Why Saint Systems built a Publisher replacement
Saint Systems has been a Microsoft partner for a long time. When Microsoft announced the end of Publisher, we watched our own clients, a lot of them churches and nonprofits, realize that years of work were about to stop opening. Nothing on the market opened those files faithfully, so we built PubKeep.
If you support an office that still depends on .pub files, try PubKeep free for 7 days on one of their real files. If something doesn’t look right, email [email protected] with a screenshot and we’ll take a look.
PubKeep is not affiliated with or endorsed by Microsoft. Microsoft Publisher is a trademark of Microsoft Corporation.
