PUB to PDF — convert Publisher files without Publisher
Turn a Microsoft Publisher .pub file into a PDF in your browser: every page as it was laid out, the text still selectable. No Publisher, no upload.
About this conversion
A .pub opens only in Publisher, and Microsoft retired Publisher in October 2026: it is no longer part of Microsoft 365, and no other Microsoft program opens the file. Newsletters, flyers, cards and certificates made in it are left without a program to open them. Here the publication is read in the page and drawn as Publisher drew it: text frames with their fonts, columns and text that runs on into the next frame, pictures and clip art, shapes, tables and borders. The PDF is made through your browser's print dialog, so the words stay real text you can select and search, not a picture of them. Fonts that are not installed on this computer are replaced with the closest ones, which can move a line break here and there.
Just want to look inside it?
The same tool without converting anything: open the file and read it.
The same file, other ways
The publication stays open after it is read, so the format is picked at the end: the same .pub can leave here as Word (.docx), JPG, PNG or TXT. Drop a whole folder and every publication in it is listed — save just the one on screen, or all of them at once as one PDF or one zip of pictures.
Questions
- Why does a print window open?
- That is how the PDF is made: choose “Save as PDF” as the destination (in Firefox, “Save to PDF”). Every page keeps its own size — a business card stays 3.5 × 2 inches, a landscape calendar stays landscape. “Microsoft Print to PDF” is a printer instead: it puts each page in the middle of a sheet of paper, with the date and the web address along the edges.
- Can I convert a whole folder of .pub files?
- Yes. Drop the folder (or several files) and pick “All publications — one PDF” under Save as: everything goes into one document, each page at its own size.
- My file is from an old Publisher.
- Files saved by Publisher 98, 2000 and 2002 open too, as well as everything from 2003 to Microsoft 365.
- Why does a font look different from the original?
- Publisher files do not carry their fonts — they only name them, and the computer that opens the file has to have them. Most come with Microsoft Office. A font this computer does not have is replaced with the closest one, here, in the PDF and in the pictures alike, so a line can break in a different place; the page lists the missing fonts after it opens the file. Installing them and opening the file again brings the look closer to the original.
- Is the file uploaded?
- No. It is read by this page on your own computer and is not sent anywhere.