Publisher - Import tool for MS-Publisher

[Roman78]

As MS discontinued MS Publisher and removed it from Office LTSC 2024 and will remove it from 365 in 2026, a Import-Tool into Affinity Publisher would be great.

I just updated our Office from 2016 and 2021 to 2024 and some colleagues are complaining that MS Publisher is gone. I was not aware it will be removed by Office 2024 also I was not aware that this software is used by some colleagues. Now we are looking for an alternative. Microsoft says to use Word or Powerpoint... That's like to try grill a steak with a refrigerator.

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

 

[GarryP]

Welcome to the forums @Roman78

See, for example: https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/208136-feature-suggestion-for-affinity-publisher-direct-import-support-for-microsoft-publisher-documents-and-templates/

As per the forum guidelines, it’s better to add to existing threads rather than make new threads about things that have already been requested.

[Roman78]

Hmm i searched for it, but did not found it.

[GarryP]

I used the forum search functionality with the terms microsoft publisher import and the thread I gave the link to was the second one down on the list of results, after yours.

It’s worth noting that the forum search ignores search terms of fewer than three characters, so if you searched for ms publisher import you would get a much longer list - basically it would be a search for publisher import - but the thread I gave the link to is there on the second page, so not too difficult to find.

Which search terms did you use and where did you search?

[Roman78]

Indeed, I searched PUB import, because MS-Publisher saves as pub-files and found this:

 

But creating an easy import or converting tool for MS-Publisher would track some more people to Affinity.

 

[GarryP]

I’ve just done a forum search for pub import and I can’t see the thread I linked to.

The forum search functionality isn’t the best in the world so that’s probably not much of a surprise.

The thread you have given a link to has some suggestions for what you can use while the Affinity applications cannot import Microsoft Publisher documents (which I think will be quite a good while, if not longer).

All I can say is that if it were technically possible, and if Serif thinks that it would make good business sense to put the time/money/effort into doing it, then I think they might do it at some point, maybe. Otherwise I can't see it happening, but that's just my opinion.