Microsoft recommends using Word as an alternative to Publisher despite admitting it’s not up to the task

In around a year and a half, the beloved DTP app Microsoft Publisher is reaching the end of its life. When October 1, 2026 rolls around, Microsoft will no offer the software or provide support for it. The company has some advice about what to do next.

If you were planning to just continue using it regardless, you may have to think again. Unless you’re using a very old copy of Publisher, the app will simple stop working. Microsoft warns that paying “Microsoft 365 subscribers will no longer be able to open or edit Publisher files in Publisher”. The solutions and alternative options suggested by the company are, frankly, laughable.

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The first suggestion is to save your existing Publisher files as PDFs -- which is great if you don’t want to be able to (easily) edit them in the future. The second suggestion is to convert Publisher files into Word format. Yes, Word. Microsoft thinks Word is a reasonable suggestion as a DTP tool.

While it is true to say that Word has come a long way over the years, anyone who has ever tried to use the word processor to create complex page layouts will be painfully aware of how much of a nightmare it can be. It has become something of a joke -- move one page element even slightly and everything can go dramatically wrong.

It’s something that even Microsoft kind of acknowledges when it suggests converting Publisher files to Word format. The company warns:

The converted Word document will be optimized for text editing. As a result, its layout may vary from the original PDF -- particularly if the document includes many graphics.

But Microsoft has other advice as well. Aware that people will still have a need to create the types of documents they used to create in Publisher, the company offers the following list of its own software that it thinks can be used to replace Publisher in different scenarios:

Perhaps a better option for most people is to stick with a non-Microsoft 365 version of Publisher. Microsoft says: “If you have the Perpetual version of Publisher, although support will end, you will still be able to install and use the app beyond this date”.

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