Publisher Retires: What You Need to Do Before It's Too Late

Microsoft Publisher is set to reach its end-of-life in October 2026, and users need to take action to preserve their documents. The app will no longer be available for editing or creating new files after this date.

The impact of the retirement depends on how you currently use Publisher: if you have a subscription through Microsoft 365, you can continue using it until October 1, but support ends on October 13; if you have a perpetual version, it will still work after October 1, but without support; and if you only have old .pub files, they won't disappear, but may become harder to open or edit.

With no guarantee that other applications can import Publisher's proprietary .pub format, users are advised to locate their existing files and export them as PDFs while still possible. This will help preserve the appearance of the documents for future reference or printing.