Microsoft Publisher retiring in October 2026

[STK91]

Morning all

 

With Microsoft Publisher retiring in October 2026 and no longer supported, what are other schools doing with publisher files? 

 

We have lot's of staff using it and so far can't find anything else to open them with.

 

Thanks

[itskdog]

We've moved to Canva - their full plan is completely free for schools (like Microsoft & Google, trying to get the kids hooked). They require schools to use SSO to log in, but they have step-by-step guides on how to configure that and how to get Canva to identify between staff and student accounts.

 

Staff were hesitant at first, but once they gave it a go (especially when I mentioned the AI features to the people who love getting ChatGPT to write their emails for them) they loved it.

 

It can import PDFs, so Publisher documents can be converted by exporting as a PDF from Publisher (maybe keep one PC with Office LTSC 2021 on to let you export the PDF for anyone who hasn't done so by October) then importing that PDF to Canva.

Edited March 13 by itskdog

[DalekSec]

Not gonna lie, i thought it had already gone. Its been out of the 365 suite for awhile. 

 

Move staff over to Word, any legacy stuff can be open via LibreOffice IIRC 

[itskdog]

1 minute ago, DalekSec said:

Not gonna lie, i thought it had already gone. Its been out of the 365 suite for awhile. 

 

Move staff over to Word, any legacy stuff can be open via LibreOffice IIRC 

It's not in LTSC 2024, but it's still in 365 until LTSC 2021 is retired in October.

 

Maybe you've already removed it manually in your deployment - there was a button in the new "Security Baselines" section of the M365 Admin Centre that would block Publisher with one click. It's still there for us on A3.

[Koldov]

Just moved a user from 2021 to 2024 as they were having some issues. I thought 'well why not, it's got to go soon'...?

 

I kind of knew it didn't include Publisher but to be safe, looked in their user folder and saw they had a couple of Publisher files, last accessed over a year ago.

 

Anyway, I informed them of the change and honestly, you'd have thought I'd personally insulted them!

 

A general 'all staff' email went out with options (like Canva, Adobe Express, exporting to PDF, or copy/paste into Word) and informing them that come October, Publisher will be gone for everybody.

 

What followed was apparently 3 days of muttered comments and complaints to the office manager... it would appear they use Publisher a lot more than I thought...

 

I would have weathered the storm, but to make it worse, it seems that Office 2024 has an issue on this machine whereby in Word, choosing 'Insert >  Pictures > Stock Images/Online Pictures, causes it to hang. From what I can tell there is an invisible dialogue box (possibly the picture browser window) and I can't work out why it isn't displaying! 

 

2021 put back on today... I'll try again in October...

[BKGarry]

Just to add, with the Schools SSO for Canva you also get to login to and use any of the Affinity (Designer, Publisher and Photo) as well, which are quite good programs think like Adobe equivalents but with coloured Icons 🙂

[Fazza]

We stopped including Publisher in our Golden Images around a year ago and constantly remind staff in meetings, emails and newsletters that it's going to stop working in October so looking forward to the first support call saying they can't open a Publisher file!!

 

We did some tests and LibreOffice is the most accurate when it comes to opening Publisher files so we can always install that for anyone that needs it.

[jthompson]

4 minutes ago, BKGarry said:

Just to add, with the Schools SSO for Canva you also get to login to and use any of the Affinity (Designer, Publisher and Photo) as well, which are quite good programs think like Adobe equivalents but with coloured Icons 🙂

 

FYI, the new edition of Affinity (v3) is now just a single app to deploy, rather than three separate ones. The SSO screen when launching it also defaults to the "Sign in with Canva" option, rather than "Sign in with Affinity ID", which simplifies things for end users, too.

[Patrick]

We are converting all existing PUB files to Word docs, and starting to steer schools down the Canva route. I was very surprised by how many of my schools use publisher. Some use it to create curriculum resources they heavily rely on, one school has hundreds of them! It's annoyed a lot of them but we are preparing them as much as possible, rolling out 2024 LTSC and converting the PUB files. 

Edited March 13 by Patrick

[ICTDirect_Joe]

I've found libreoffice draw somewhat works and can open pre-existing publisher files, but I think something like the canva route is probably a better long-term solution. Its sad though as to me publisher is perfect at what it does!

[psydii]

I just had a poke at my start menu and was astonished to find publisher installed. Version 2602 no less.  Very surprised there wasn't a warning in the app about its impending demise.

[MrEprise]

I've noticed while temporarily helping to support another school that since it's still installed, there are a lot of users that still use it. They're going to have a big shock when it does eventually disappear.

[BKGarry]

The thing about Publisher is, it is (was) quite a good product for what it is designed to do.

[psydii]

8 minutes ago, MrEprise said:

I've noticed while temporarily helping to support another school that since it's still installed, there are a lot of users that still use it. They're going to have a big shock when it does eventually disappear.

Yeah. I'm feeling this is about to be a bigger problem than I was anticipating.

[BKGarry]

Let's not forget it's most important built in templates, that have been there since I was at school

 

[jthompson]

4 minutes ago, BKGarry said:

Let's not forget it's most important built in templates, that have been there since I was at school

 

Now I want Publisher back

Edited March 13 by jthompson

[DavR]

I've been sending periodic reminders to our staff about this, starting at either the 2yr or 18 month mark, explaining that their options are either save it to a PDF, recreate it in Word, or re-design in Canva. I recently set up the free Canva for Education with SSO for our school, and whilst it's a great tool, the jump in skills required is pretty big.

 

We're big Publisher users, for example our office use it to create staff ID badges, and good behaviour certificates mail merged from a student list, so they're not overjoyed having to recreate those functions somehow, but I've very much left the ball in their court.

 

We'll be upgrading to Office LTSC 2024 over summer, after that, I'll maybe keep a copy on a VM for file conversion, but that's it. Be interesting to see what the fallout is, people can't say they weren't told....

[psydii]

Aldus Pagemaker was what we had. (copy got written in word 6 (for DOS)) None of this graphics none sense.

 

I've just explored the worst migration option - teaching staff how to use InDesign. We've actually got enough Adobe competency on staff that this might actually be viable. But right now InDesign is barfing on the new version of Times New Roman and Calibri that were updated in Windows.

 

If anyone has InDesign, it might be worth voting on this Adobe Customer Voice, and you have some things in publisher that you need to try to keep editable in the future:

[ID-4272938] After installing a Windows 11 update, InDesign is unable to find the Times New Roman and Calibri fonts – Adobe InDesign

[Sylv3r]

Do we actually know what will happen - will it disapear completely as part of an update? Still be installed - you will just receive a message when opening it to say it's no longer supported and won't work or will still work just without any support / security upgrades or something else?

[psydii]

Quote

You can continue to use Publisher with its current functionality until October 2026. 

Support for the perpetual version of Publisher will end on October 1, 2026, when Office LTSC 2021 reaches end of support. Microsoft 365 subscribers will not be able to access Publisher from that date forward.  

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/microsoft-publisher-will-no-longer-be-supported-after-october-2026-ee6302a2-4bc7-4841-babf-8e9be3acbfd7

[DavR]

My understanding was that it will just go "end of life" and cease to be supported - i.e., existing installations will stay put, but download refs from O365 will disappear. It might get a message in-program, but my bet is it will just be quietly abandoned.

[andy_b]

2 hours ago, BKGarry said:

Let's not forget it's most important built in templates, that have been there since I was at school

 

Simpler times

 

[Fazza]

On 13/03/2026 at 16:51, Sylv3r said:

Do we actually know what will happen - will it disapear completely as part of an update? Still be installed - you will just receive a message when opening it to say it's no longer supported and won't work or will still work just without any support / security upgrades or something else?

 

I'm going to have an educated guess and say that if you have a non Office365 install it will still work but there is no support and will no longer be Cyber Secure as there will be no more updates to it.  Already we are seeing popups appear when opening Publisher up saying that it goes end of life this year so I would have an educated guess that if you have the O365 version installed then it will simply stop working.  I guess we'll just have to wait and see later on in the year..

[itskdog]

On 13/03/2026 at 17:00, DavR said:

My understanding was that it will just go "end of life" and cease to be supported - i.e., existing installations will stay put, but download refs from O365 will disappear. It might get a message in-program, but my bet is it will just be quietly abandoned.

 

Microsoft themselves suggest that it will uninstall itself if you're on M365 Apps, only if you're using LTSC 2021 or older will you still have access to it.

 

Microsoft Publisher will no longer be supported after October 2026 - Microsoft Support

[mrstrong]

also looked at canva but I'm now suggesting Microsoft Sway for newsletters etc, seems an easier learning curve compared to canva