Using Perpetual Publisher alongside Office 365

Hi, Lucy Waqairagata

I understand why you want to keep Publisher. If you have a large collection of .pub files, converting everything is not a practical answer.

A perpetual copy of Publisher can still be used after the Microsoft 365 version goes away, and it can continue to open and edit your Publisher files. The catch is installing it alongside Microsoft 365 on the same PC. Subscription and one-time-purchase Office versions generally cannot run side by side, and that guidance also applies to individual Office apps. So I would not buy Publisher 2021 assuming it will install alongside your current Office setup; the installer may ask you to remove Microsoft 365.

The more dependable arrangement is to keep Microsoft 365 on your main PC and use the perpetual Publisher license on a separate Windows PC. That lets you keep working with your original .pub files without changing them to Word or PDF. Publisher through Microsoft 365 becomes unavailable on October 1, 2026; support for perpetual Publisher ends October 13, 2026, though the perpetual app can still be installed and used afterward.

The key distinction is that a perpetual license preserves access to Publisher, but it does not guarantee a trouble-free installation beside Microsoft 365 on one computer.

Thank you for your patience in reading, I hope this information has been helpful to you. 

If the answer is helpful, please click "Yes" and kindly upvote it. If you have extra questions about this answer, please click "Comment."    

Note: Please follow the steps in our documentation to enable e-mail notifications if you want to receive the related email notification for this thread.