Microsoft Publisher is gone — how do I open my old .pub files now?

Microsoft removed Publisher from Microsoft 365 subscriptions on or shortly after October 1, 2026, and support for the perpetual Publisher 2021 version ended October 13, 2026. Your .pub files are not deleted — the free LibreOffice Draw opens them. Back the folder up, save copies in OpenDocument format, export PDFs, and check every page for layout shifts.

You double-click the church newsletter or club flyer you update every year, and this time nothing will open it. Short answer: your files are not deleted — what is gone is the program. Microsoft removed Publisher from Microsoft 365 subscriptions on or shortly after October 1, 2026, and support for the perpetual Publisher 2021 version ended October 13, 2026.

The free way to keep working with those files is LibreOffice Draw. Why does this strand so many people? The .pub format belongs to Publisher alone, and Word, PowerPoint and Excel do not open it.

Without Publisher or a compatible tool, those newsletters, certificates and posters sit on your computer safe but unreadable.1. Do not delete anything — copy the whole folder of .pub files to a backup drive or cloud folder first, originals included.2. Install the free LibreOffice, open a .pub file in LibreOffice Draw, and save a copy in OpenDocument format, so it no longer depends on one company’s program.3.

Export a PDF copy of each important file too, for printing and sharing exactly as it looks.4. Check every page against that PDF, especially multi-column newsletters and old tables, because layouts can shift in conversion.5. For any file you reuse every year, rebuild it once in Word, PowerPoint or another tool you still have, and keep the original .pub beside it just in case.Pro tip: If you still have a working perpetual copy of Publisher on an old machine, use it now to export PDFs of your most important files before that machine is replaced — that PDF is your safety net if a conversion ever drops something silently.Ad’s take: I hate it when a company retires a tool folks built twenty years of newsletters in.

Your work belongs to you, so get it into a format no single company can take away.