Perpetual licence. One-time purchase. Publisher included alongside Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Access and OneNote. Unaffected by the October 2026 Microsoft 365 shutdown.
Platform: Windows 10 / Windows 11
Delivery: Instant · Support: UK-based
What’s happened to Publisher
Microsoft announced in February 2024 that Publisher would reach end of life in October 2026. Their official support notice is unambiguous: after that date, Microsoft 365 subscribers will no longer be able to open or edit files in Publisher. The app stops launching. No grace period, no legacy mode.
For a fuller picture of the timeline and who’s affected, the Microsoft Publisher retirement guide covers it in detail. The short version: if you’re on a subscription, you lose access in October. If you’re on a perpetual licence, you don’t.
Microsoft also removed Publisher from Office Professional Plus 2024 entirely. This wasn’t a phased removal — the 2024 suite simply doesn’t ship with it. So the product line currently sits like this:
Office Pro Plus 2024 — Publisher not included.
Microsoft 365 (all plans) — Publisher included until 13 October 2026, then removed.
Which means Office Pro Plus 2021 is the only version you can buy today that includes Publisher at all.
What you’re actually buying with Office Pro Plus 2021
Office Professional Plus 2021 is a perpetual retail licence — you buy it once, it activates against Microsoft’s servers via the Office Deployment Tool using the LTSC channel, and it runs indefinitely on that machine. No Microsoft account required. No renewal. No subscription to forget about and pay for three years after you’ve stopped needing it.
The full suite includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Access, OneNote, and Publisher. It’s the professional tier — the version that includes both Publisher and Access, which the Home & Business edition doesn’t carry.
The October 2026 shutdown affects the Microsoft 365 build of Publisher. The 2021 perpetual build is a different installation; Microsoft has no remote kill-switch for software you own outright. Once activated, it stays activated.
What happens to .pub files if you don’t act
If you’re currently using Publisher through Microsoft 365, your .pub files become uneditable in October. Publisher closes. Microsoft’s advice is to export to PDF before the deadline — straightforward for a handful of files, considerably less so if you have years of templates and print-ready documents.
If you’re on Office Pro Plus 2021, nothing changes for your files. They open normally in the same application you’ve always used.
The alternatives — Word, PowerPoint, Canva, Affinity Publisher — are real options for new work, but none of them open .pub files directly. The Publisher alternatives guide covers each one honestly, including where they fall short. For anyone with an existing archive of Publisher documents, the perpetual 2021 licence is the only clean answer.
Common questions
For Microsoft 365 subscribers, yes — Publisher is removed on 13 October 2026 and won’t be reinstated. For perpetual licence holders (Office Pro Plus 2021 and earlier), Publisher continues to run after that date. It loses Microsoft support and security updates, but the application itself keeps working. There is no remote deactivation for perpetual software.
No. Publisher was removed from Office Professional Plus 2024. The last version of Office to include Publisher as part of a perpetual licence is Office Professional Plus 2021.
If you have a Microsoft 365 subscription, no — Publisher will no longer be available to download or install after October 2026. Microsoft has indicated it may also be removed from existing M365 installations at that point. If you have Office Pro Plus 2021 on a perpetual licence, you can continue to install and use Publisher beyond that date, including on a new machine.
No. Microsoft stopped selling standalone Publisher licences some time ago. The only current route to a perpetual copy of Publisher is through Office Professional Plus 2021, which includes the full suite. There is no Publisher-only purchase option.
It depends on which version you have. Microsoft 365 subscribers will lose access to Publisher entirely — existing .pub files won’t open in Publisher once the app is removed. Perpetual licence holders (Office Pro Plus 2021) keep access to their files with no changes. Microsoft recommends M365 users export important documents to PDF before the October deadline.
Gary Walsh is the Head of Tech Support at Software Supplies, with more than 20 years in the IT industry. Fully Microsoft-certified and experienced across the full business software stack — from Windows and Office to cloud infrastructure and device management — Gary delivers practical, no-nonsense advice that helps users and businesses get the most from their technology.
