Which Publisher versions can I open here?

Files saved by Publisher 97, 98 and 2000, by Publisher 2002, 2003, 2007 and 2010, and by Publisher 2013, 2016, 2019, 2021 and Microsoft 365 (all of them still use the .pub extension). Most Publisher 95 files open too. Publisher 1.0 and 2.0 files from the early 1990s are not supported. Out of 154 real publications from Publisher 97 onward that we tested, 152 displayed their pages.

Publisher is gone from Microsoft 365 — will my old .pub files still open?

Microsoft stopped including Publisher in Microsoft 365 in October 2026, so many people no longer have a program that opens .pub files. This page does not depend on Publisher at all, so a .pub file keeps opening here. To keep a lasting copy, save the publication as PDF — any device can open it, and the wording stays searchable.

Why did my newsletter text land in a different column than in Publisher?

In Publisher, one story can run through several linked text boxes. The file says which boxes share a story, but the reader we use does not pass on their order, so the story is poured into the boxes in reading order — left to right, then downward. In a classic three-column newsletter that matches Publisher; if the author linked boxes in an unusual order, a passage may continue in another box. Every word of the story is still shown exactly once.

Why is my .pub file called a “public key”?

The .pub extension is used by two unrelated kinds of files: Publisher documents and public keys made by SSH or PGP software (for example id_rsa.pub). A key is a single line of text starting with something like “ssh-rsa”, and it opens in any text editor. This page tells the two apart by their content, not by the name.

Can I edit the publication or turn it into a Word document?

Editing is not available here — the page shows the publication and saves it. For changes, take the page as SVG and open it in Inkscape, Illustrator or Figma, where every shape and line of text stays editable. The PDF suits printing and sharing.

The fonts look a little different. Why?

Fonts are not stored inside a .pub file. When your device lacks one of the fonts the author used, a font of the same style is put in its place, and a line may break a word earlier or later. The note under the page lists the fonts of the publication and the ones missing on your device.

PUB File Viewer (Microsoft Publisher) Online

Publisher was always a Windows-only program, never part of Office for Mac, and in October 2026 Microsoft took it out of Microsoft 365 — yet club newsletters, church bulletins, menus and certificates made with it keep arriving by email. This page reads them with libmspub, the Publisher import library inside LibreOffice, compiled to WebAssembly. Pictures are placed inside their frames, Publisher tables keep their rows and columns, BorderArt frames keep their color, and a story that runs through several linked text boxes is poured from one box into the next instead of being repeated in each of them.

How to use it

3 steps

Choose the .pub file

Drag it onto the page or tap to browse. Publisher’s thumbnail of page one shows up immediately.

Read every page

Switch between pages, zoom in to 400 %, look up a word and copy whole paragraphs.

Keep a copy

Take the whole publication as one PDF, or the open page as SVG or PNG.

Open a .pub publication without Publisher and keep it as PDF, SVG or PNG

Drop a file here

Microsoft Publisher .pub — versions 97 – 2016, Publisher 2019, 2021 and Microsoft 365 ·

Pages are laid out with libmspub (MPL-2.0).

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Who is this tool for?

Published 13 Nov 2026 Author: The Supreme

PUB File Viewer (Microsoft Publisher) Online

How to use it

Open a .pub publication without Publisher and keep it as PDF, SVG or PNG

Thumbnail from the file

An exact PDF from the server

How do you rate this tool?

Comments

PUB File Viewer (Microsoft Publisher) Online

How to use it

Open a .pub publication without Publisher and keep it as PDF, SVG or PNG

Thumbnail from the file

An exact PDF from the server

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How do you rate this tool?

Comments