Microsoft Wiki

Checkout our wiki's socials

READ MORE

Microsoft Wiki
Microsoft Wiki
‎
1,341
pages
in: Microsoft Office, Microsoft Office components, 1991 releases

Microsoft Publisher

Sign in to edit

Microsoft Publisher is a desktop publishing application from Microsoft. It is often considered an entry-level desktop publishing application, differing from Microsoft Word in that the emphasis is placed on page layout and design rather than text composition and proofreading. It is planned for discontinuation in October 2026.[1]

Overview[]

Publisher is included in high-end editions of Microsoft Office, which reflects Microsoft's emphasis on the application as an easy-to-use and less expensive alternative to the "heavyweights"; it also had a focus on the small business market, where firms do not have dedicated design professionals available to make marketing materials and other documents. However, it has a relatively small share of the desktop publishing market, which is dominated by Adobe InDesign and formerly by QuarkXPress.

Most Microsoft Office apps adopted ribbons for their user interfaces starting with Office 2007; however, Publisher retained its toolbars until Office 2010.[2]

Publisher has historically been less well-liked among high-end commercial print shops, compared with other desktop publishing applications. Publisher's position as an entry-level application aggravates many issues (particularly in older versions), such as unavailable fonts and embedded objects not available on service providers' machines; however, Publisher does come with tools to pack related files into a self-expanding application. Many higher-end features like transparency, object shadowing, slugs, text on paths, built-in PDF output, etc., are either not fully functional or simply unavailable (especially in previous versions). However, recent versions have greater capabilities concerning color separations and proper process coloring output. Publisher 2007 also includes the capability to output commercial press-quality PDF with embedded fonts as an optional download from the Microsoft website.

Publisher's proprietary file format is, with the exception of Adobe PageMaker, unsupported by most other applications. However, Publisher supports numerous other file formats, including the EMF (Enhanced Metafile) format, which is standard and supported across many applications and platforms. Publisher 2007 can also export in the industry-standard PDF format.

Compatibility[]

Several applications can import Publisher's proprietary file format (.pub) for editing with some success, including Collabora Online, LibreOffice, and Scribus. Another option is to save the document as a separate EPS file for each page in the publication, and then open the EPS files in the aforementioned applications or other applications.

Publisher supports some other file formats, including Microsoft's Enhanced Metafile (EMF) format, which is supported on Windows platforms. The trial version of Publisher can be used to view .pub files beyond the trial period.

Despite Adobe PageMaker also saving files with a .pub extension, the two file formats are unrelated and incompatible.

Versions[]

Publisher

Microsoft Publisher 2003

Versions of Microsoft Publisher include:

  • 1991 Publisher for Windows
  • 1993 Publisher 2
  • 1995 Publisher 95 (version 3), also known as 'Publisher for Windows 95'
  • 1996 Publisher 97 (Windows 95 and higher), included with the Small Business Edition (SBE) and Professional SKUs of Office 97
  • 1998 Publisher 98 (Windows 95 and higher), included with the 'SBE 2.0' SKU of Office 97
  • 1999 Publisher 2000 (Windows 95 and higher), included with the SBE, Professional, and Premium SKUs of Office 2000
  • 2001 Publisher 2002 (Windows NT 4.0 SP6a and higher), included with OEM versions of the SBE and Professional SKUs of Office XP, as well as an early limited-edition retail version of the Professional SKU.
  • 2003 Publisher 2003 (Windows 2000 SP3 and higher), included with the SBE and Professional SKUs of Office 2003
  • 2007 Publisher 2007 (Windows XP SP2 and higher), included with the SBE, Professional and Ultimate SKUs of Office 2007
  • 2010 Publisher 2010 (Windows XP SP3 and higher), included with the SBE and Professional SKUs of Office 2010
  • 2012 Publisher 2013 (Windows 7 and higher), included with the SBE and Professional SKUs of Office 2013
  • 2015 Publisher 2016 (Windows 7 SP1 and higher), included with the SBE and Professional SKUs of Office 2016
  • 2018 Publisher 2019 (Windows 10 only), included with the SBE and Professional SKUs of Office 2019
  • 2021 Publisher 2021 (Windows 10 and higher), included with the Professional version of Office 2021

Icons[]

References[]

  1. ↑ "Microsoft Publsiher will no longer be supported after October 2026". Microsoft Support. Microsoft. 
  2. ↑ "User interface differences in Office 2010 vs earlier versions". Microsoft TechNet. Microsoft. 15 July 2011. Archived from the original on 12 April 2016. 

External links[]

Archived links[]

Community content is available under CC-BY-SA unless otherwise noted.