Post Publisher Retirement Stress!

Question

Post Publisher Retirement Stress!

Socrmom92 5

I use Publisher EXTENSIVELY for both personal and my small business. I have the application downloaded to my computer as part of an Office package. Will I still be able to access the files and the application, and continue creating using it, even though it won't be supported any longer by Microsoft??

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2 answers

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Answer 1

Whether you can keep using Microsoft Publisher depends entirely on whether your Office package is a Microsoft 365 subscription or a perpetual (one-time purchase) license such as Office 2021.

If you use a Microsoft 365 subscription, access to Publisher will end on October 1, 2026. The Publisher application will no longer open, and you will not be able to open, view, or edit .pub files in Publisher. You should convert any important .pub files to other formats, such as PDF or Word, before October 1, 2026.

If you use a perpetual license, such as Office 2021 or standalone Office LTSC, you can continue using Publisher after October 13, 2026. The application will not be automatically removed or disabled, and you can continue to open, edit, and create Publisher files. However, when support for Publisher officially ends, there will be no future security updates, bug fixes, or technical support, which can increase the security risk of continuing to use the application.

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hth

Marcin

Answer 2

It depends on which type of Publisher license is installed on the computer.

If Publisher is the Microsoft 365 subscription version: it can continue to be used with current functionality until October 1, 2026. After that, Microsoft 365 subscribers will no longer be able to access Publisher, and will no longer be able to open or edit Publisher files in Publisher.
If Publisher is a perpetual one-time-purchase version: it can still be installed and used beyond October 2026, but support will have ended. Support for the perpetual version ends on October 13, 2026.

For existing files:

With Microsoft 365 Publisher, existing .pub files should be converted before October 2026 if continued access is needed in another format. Microsoft recommends converting to PDF or Word.
With a perpetual version, existing Publisher files can still be accessed and edited after support ends.

If there are many .pub files, a file search for .Pub on the PC, OneDrive, or SharePoint can help locate them, and bulk export to PDF can be done with a PowerShell script or other automation.