What are they thinking? Microsoft is discontinuing Publisher on October 1 of this year. Publisher has been part of Microsoft Office for years and has long been the standard for creating print publications. For newsletters with wrapped images, columns, and flowing text, few tools compare. Beginning in October, Microsoft will remove Publisher from Office 365 subscriptions—not just for new subscribers, but for everyone.

I’ve been following this change for a while and have not found a strong replacement. Microsoft recommends using Word, which may be the most practical option, though I do not think it is an ideal one. Word can handle columns, graphics, and text wrapping, but it cannot match Publisher’s ease of use with text boxes and page layout. Technically, the work can be done in Word, but it will take more effort.

I have also reviewed other office suites and publishing programs, but none work as well as Publisher for creating printed newsletters and similar materials.

For now, we are preparing to use Word for desktop publishing. Since Microsoft appears to be steering users in that direction, you might expect the transition to be simple. Unfortunately, Word cannot open Publisher files. In practice, that means recreating documents from scratch. I also have not found another program that can open my basic Publisher files for editing.

I did find one online conversion tool, available at https://www.zamzar.com/, that was able to convert a simple Publisher file into a Word document. However, the results were imperfect. In one sample, every instance of “office” became “ofice,” and there were other spacing and alignment issues. More complex documents would likely create even more problems.

So where does this leave us? We should plan to allow extra time for newsletters in October, November, December, and beyond. Instead of updating last month’s Publisher file, we will likely need to rebuild each newsletter in Word, which is less convenient for this kind of work.

It is not an ideal solution, but for now it appears to be the best option available.