The End of Life of Microsoft Publisher

Print is dead. Long Live Print. The End of Life of Microsoft Publisher.

Since its introduction over 30 years ago, Microsoft Publisher has held a niche in the desktop publishing space. Largely ignored by the print and design industry, it has been bundled in the Microsoft package as a solution for people wanting to handle those tasks in house.

Through the years, Publisher has been superseded by features in PowerPoint and Word, so Microsoft have closed the final curtain announcing it will no longer be supported.

Going forward, it will no longer be included in Microsoft 365 subscriptions and existing installed versions won’t be supported either. You won’t be able to open or edit existing files. There may be some workarounds, but it will be challenging so now is the time to convert any existing files or processes that include Publisher, to an alternative format, such as Microsoft Word, or PowerPoint, or convert to PDF if only viewing is necessary.

More details on Microsoft’s website: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/microsoft-publisher-will-no-longer-be-supported-after-october-2026-ee6302a2-4bc7-4841-babf-8e9be3acbfd7