Microsoft Publisher has been retired: what now?

Stephen Wheeler · 10 October 2026

In short: since 1 October 2026, Microsoft Publisher is no longer part of Microsoft 365, and Microsoft says subscribers can no longer open or edit .pub files with it. Your old .pub files aren't lost: SRW Publisher opens them as pages you can edit, without Publisher.

What Microsoft has changed

Microsoft announced in 2024 that Publisher would reach the end of its life in October 2026. From 1 October 2026 it is no longer included with Microsoft 365. Microsoft is removing it from subscribers' computers on or shortly after that date, and says they can no longer use Publisher to open or edit .pub files.

If you bought Publisher outright, as part of Office 2021 or an older Office, Microsoft's support for it ends in October 2026 too. It may keep running on your PC for now, but it gets no more fixes or security updates.

Microsoft's own notice is here: Microsoft Publisher will no longer be supported after October 2026.

What it means for your .pub files

Your .pub files are still on your computer, but without Publisher there's very little that can open them. Word and PowerPoint can't open a .pub file. Microsoft's advice was to save Publisher files as PDFs before the deadline, which is fine for printing, but a PDF isn't easy to edit.

If you have years of brochures, price lists, newsletters or notices saved as Publisher files, you probably want to keep changing them, not start them again.

How SRW Publisher helps

I've used Publisher for over 30 years for my own business, and I made SRW Publisher when Microsoft announced the retirement. It's a simple page layout program for Windows that works the way Publisher users expect: tabs and a ribbon along the top, pages down the left, your page in the middle.

It opens .pub files directly, with the photos, text boxes, lines and shapes as separate pieces you can move and change.
It doesn't need Publisher, Microsoft 365 or Office, and your original .pub file is never changed.
It opens PDFs as editable pages too, so the PDFs you saved before the deadline can be changed.
You pay once. No subscription, no account, and it works offline.

Most files come through ready to edit. Some need a little tidying, for example text that wrapped round a picture, or a font your computer doesn't have. If a file doesn't come through properly, email it to me at stephen@srwpublisher.co.uk and I'll fix what I can in a future update.

Step by step: How to open a .pub file without Publisher.

SRW Publisher is an independent product and is not made by, or connected with, Microsoft.

Try SRW Publisher free for 15 days

From the Microsoft Store. £24.99 launch price until 31 December 2026, then £29.99. Pay once, no subscription. Windows 10 and 11.