Publisher alternative in 2026

I am running Windows 11 with Publisher 20.2. I've tried a couple of files with LibreOffice 25.2. and so far they are opening up ok and I am able to edit in LibreOffice. It seems unclear what will happen to those of us that have an Office subscription. Can I stop updates and keep Publisher working? Wonder if I could get a PC and keep it running just for Publisher. Could I install just Publisher? Should I just bite the bullet and give up on Publisher now? I have a lot of files I want to keep and converting to PDF defeats the purpose of having editable files. Almost surprised that Microsoft didn't just suggest printing out the files and keep a paper version.

I got burned years ago with Adobe Pagemaker (yea, dating myself) where I lost access to a lot of files. Pagemaker would not install on newer versions of Windows. We have a year before it is cut off so it gives us some time to find alternatives.

I need to update. While "most" of the Publisher files seem to open OK, there are some formatting issues in the documents. Opening any of the files is slow.

Where did you purchase the perpetual copy?

Online from a company is AUS. Software Depot. They assured me it was a perpetual copy of Publisher.

I can tell you that Publisher DOES NOT move to Word (text only) and for some simple things Word is, well not user friendly, which is why I use Publisher so much. Inserting graphics on Word does not work unless I first put on Publisher AND THEN cut and paste into Word. I am very unhappy to see Publisher disappear. I have hundreds of files that will now be worthless.

Thank you for your response. I agree. Not only does it not convert Publisher files very well, it's incredibly convoluted if you try to create new documents on it that look like the ones you used to create with Publisher. Things that take me seconds on Publisher I struggled for hours trying to do on Libre - both its text version and its image one. I gave up in the end and tried Scribus because someone had said it was better. I found it no better than Libre. Even the most basic of things like copying and pasting text and images into it are incredibly convoluted, and when you finally manage to get both text and image on a page, trying to wrap the text round the image is a nightmare. Nothing seems to work in the way the instructions say they will. Half the time the tools you are told will appear when you click somewhere just aren't there when you do.

So, I've given up on both of those. I think I'm just going to have to buy something incredibly expensive to do my stuff. If I ever meet a senior executive of Microsoft he won't finf the encounter very pleasant.