Publisher alternative in 2026

Lorraine,

That piece of information only means that Microsoft won't retire Publisher prematurely.

Also, remember that if you have Office 2021 Professional or some older perpetual license that does include Publisher, you will be able to continue using Publisher even after the retirement date.

I had a similar problem. I then created a new folder in 'Program Files (x86)' (called it Publisher 2002 in my case) and installed my old 2002 version of Publisher to that folder. I then registered the copy with only the licence number, ie no name, no email, no phone, etc.

I can open all of my 365 Publisher files and modify them, create new ones from the template I have created, save and export to PDF. I write monthly newsletters for a not-for-profit organisation and do my own Christmas Cards, etc.

Word does not cut it, cannot export from 365 Pub to Word and it is impossible to correct layouts, photo placements, etc.

Best of luck.

Diane

Today, March 24, 2025, I spoke with a supervisor at Microsoft Support about the Publisher discontinuation issue. There was no additional help, but was told to keep watching for updates as a lot could change over the next year and a half. HOWEVER, when I first checked this forum, I didn't pay attention to the above feedback option. Mohammad the supervisor directed me to it, said it goes to the engineers/designers, but my Publisher doesn't give the option of Feedback in the left hand column, just Account and Options at the bottom. He told me to open a new Publisher file, click File at the top left and open Feedback with the Windows key + F. That worked, the Feedback screen opened and I put in my feedback as a Suggestion, not a problem, etc. One thing the online support agent/customer service rep reiterated was that most of the features of Publisher would be available on Word, PowerPoint, or Designer. I asked if they were modifying those programs to add Publisher features. I said it didn't make much sense to change 3 programs instead keeping the one that did it all and that I'd have to decide which program was best to use with any new project (or modifying and old one for that matter). Time-wise and cost-wise, it doesn't make sense for the consumer. The only reason I kept Microsoft and purchased Office Professional in the first place over plain Office was for Publisher. Otherwise I can use Open Office or Google docs, sheets, and presentations, etc.

I'm a little confused by this information on their website

This conflicts with the email I received advising me to convert all my existing documents - this suggests it will still be available, someone help me out to understand this lol. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/publisher 
I make greeting cards and have many custom greeting card templates created in Publisher. I am struggling to recreate these in any alternative program I have looked at. I need to be able to have information on the back of the card with the front blank, a code on the back is edited before each print so converting to pdf really won't help me, although I have worked out I can add initials which can be my card code but my prints didn't seem to come out in quite the right place. I like to work on a single page aligning accurately which Publisher allows me to do. Can anyone recommend an alternative that would be as easy to create, I have looked into others but can't find anything that I see as a replacement, some I have looked at you have to create a page size the width of the card and guess where the middle is to add information on the back of the card which is ridiculous. I do have an older version of Office (MS Office Pro 2013) but it will not allow me to install whether that's because I already have 365 installed not sure. When we get to October 2026 I shall uninstall 365 and try installing again at that time, no point wasting time now plus I'm hopeful Microsoft will decide, whilst they won't update or offer in new subscriptions, they will allow us to continue to use the software.

This has left me in a real fix. I'm an amateur tabletop game designer, and I've put a lot of effort over the past few years into building assets for one of my game designs in Publisher. I can't really afford to pay for 365 and InDesign/Affinity/etc... I've tried Scribus which has a pretty horrible UX.

As far as I can see, none of these has a satisfactory way of converting/importing Publisher files. The export options for Publisher are clearly inadequate - Word is text-only, PDF loses all of the needed editability, and I don't see any other options. When I opened the .pub files in Scribus, it was clear it would be faster to just re-write the whole thing rather than try to correct all the formatting mess.

I'm now stuck with the prospect of having to spend weeks, maybe months, completely re-building all the asset files from scratch.