Publisher alternative in 2026

I am in the same boat as Amanda - I use Publisher for all kinds of work and volunteer designing, and I know it well. I cannot believe it will be retired! Why? How hard (ore expensive) can it be to keep Publisher and maybe update its relevance (if that is what Microsoft engineers are so concerned about)? Will I be able to convert my Publisher documents to whatever Microsoft has in store next? It takes a lot of time to learn a new format. This seems like an avoidable stress to many lives.

Like many on here, over the years I have published newsletters for a number of non-profits, with over 20 years of .pub publications on file. Converting all to pdf format is not a practicable solution, and has some challenges regarding archiving .
Microsoft: no one who uses Publisher on a regular basis believes, or accepts, Word, or any other MS application, is a viable and workable alternative. Far too much .pub formatting cannot be done in Word.
Given you have chosen to abandon Publisher after October 2026, will you do the right thing and provide a method to translate .pub format
and formatting to .docx, before the cutoff? If not, will MS drop ownership and copyright on the .pub format and programming so interested third parties can determine if they want to support it, and/or develop a translation application?

I've also used Publisher for 20 years. I've made posters, booklets, cards and newsletter on it. I have Office 2010 and have noticed that I can no longer access clip art so I wondered if I could buy a stand alone Publisher, because that is all I use out of the Office package. I noticed that the new Office didn't come with Publisher and landed here.

This is very disappointing and it is also very frustrating to spend hundreds on an Office package, most of which I don't need, just to have to buy another every three or four years. And now to find that it has been removed and none of the Publishers will be supported after 2026. Like all the other folks here, I don't understand why you have to do this. People who are using this on work computers don't have the time to learn a new program! I hope I can find another program that is comfortable to use so that I can leave this nonsense behind. Very annoying!

I have been using Publisher for years to create genealogy albums and am devastated that this fantastic tool is being dropped. I have literally hundreds of pages that I will have to save as pdfs or jpgs to make sure I don't lose them. How can you do this to your customers? Please reconsider this decision or at least offer some alternatives.

Karen E

https://softwaredepot.co/en-us/products/microsoft-publisher-2021?fo_c=4515&fo_k=31342b97ca3b3ed26e8c0db616071562&fo_s=gplaus&gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAiAqrG9BhAVEiwAaPu5zrLPcfeqaXXazujXIE4-uRuWg4eqqBtPzsGC0S7iNjxItrLcd9rQCRoCdYsQAvD_BwE