How to Convert Publisher Files to PDF, Word and Other Formats

Converting to PDF — The Safe Option

PDF is the right choice for archiving. It preserves everything — layout, fonts, images, colours, positioning — exactly as the original .pub file appears. The trade-off is that a PDF isn’t easily editable. If you just need a permanent, faithful copy of the document, this is the format.

1. Open the .pub file in Microsoft Publisher.
2. Click File → Export → Create PDF/XPS Document.
3. Click Create PDF/XPS. Choose your save location and filename.
4. Before clicking Publish, click Options to choose a quality level.
5. Click Publish. The PDF is created.

The quality levels matter depending on what you’re doing with the file:

For bulk archiving, Standard is all you need. The difference in visual quality between Standard and High Quality is only noticeable when printing.

Converting to Word — Editable, But Compromised

Publisher can save directly to .docx format. The bad news: this conversion is rough. Microsoft’s own documentation acknowledges that only text and basic font formatting survive the process.

1. Open the .pub file in Publisher.
2. Click File → Save As.
3. Set the Save as type dropdown to Word Document.
4. Click Save. Publisher warns you that design elements won’t be preserved.
5. Open the saved .docx in Word. Reinsert graphics and adjust layout manually.

This works for text-heavy documents — newsletters, articles, reports where you mainly need the words. For anything with layout complexity (brochures, flyers, business cards, posters), the output is essentially unusable. Office Watch tested Microsoft’s recommended method and called it “better than nothing, but not much better.”

There’s an alternative route: export to PDF first (using the steps above), then open the PDF in Word. Word attempts to convert the PDF into editable content. Results are inconsistent — sometimes you get individual text blocks and images, sometimes the entire page imports as a single graphic. Worth trying, but don’t rely on it for important documents.

Converting to Image Formats

For flyers, posters, social media assets, and anything where you need a picture file rather than a document. Two approaches:

Direct from Publisher:

1. Open the .pub file in Publisher.
2. Click File → Save As.
3. Select PNG, JPEG, or Enhanced Metafile from the file type dropdown.
4. Click Change to set the resolution — High Quality Printing (300 DPI) for print, Standard for screen.
5. Click Save. Each page in the publication saves as a separate image file.

Via PDF: Export to PDF first, then convert the PDF to images using any PDF viewer or converter. This gives you more control over which pages to export and at what settings.

Choose PNG for anything with text, logos, or sharp edges — it’s lossless and preserves crisp lines. JPEG works for photo-heavy layouts where file size matters. Enhanced Metafile (EMF) is useful for vector graphics you plan to insert into other Office documents like Word or PowerPoint.

What If You Don’t Have Publisher Installed?

The .pub format is proprietary to Microsoft Publisher. Without Publisher, your options are limited and the quality drops significantly.

LibreOffice Draw has partial .pub import support through the Document Liberation Project. It handles simple documents — a single-page flyer with basic text and a few images — reasonably well. Multi-page publications with text boxes, columns, precise positioning, and embedded graphics lose their layout substantially. Images may need reinserting. Always test with a sample file before committing to this route for a batch of documents.

Online converters (Zamzar, CloudConvert, and similar services) can attempt the conversion. Two concerns: privacy, because you’re uploading potentially sensitive business documents to a third-party server, and quality, which is typically worse than LibreOffice for complex layouts.

The honest recommendation: if you have .pub files that matter, install Publisher. Office Professional Plus 2021 is a one-time purchase at £69 and gives you full, native access to every .pub file. No workarounds, no quality loss, no privacy trade-offs. It’s the last Office version that includes Publisher, and the application works indefinitely on a perpetual licence — even after Microsoft ends official support.

Handling a Large Backlog

If you have hundreds of .pub files spread across shared drives and local machines, converting everything individually isn’t practical. Triage first.

Not every file needs converting. Many .pub files are one-off documents that were printed years ago and never needed again. Focus your effort on files that actually matter:

1. Files you actively reference or update — anything still in use.
2. Templates you reuse — letterheads, certificates, event programmes, branded documents.
3. Legal or compliance documents that must remain accessible for a set retention period.
4. Marketing materials with brand assets you may need to recreate or repurpose.

For everything on that list: create a PDF copy as the minimum archive. PDF preserves the document exactly and takes seconds per file. Then decide which files also need to remain editable — those are the ones worth the more labour-intensive Word conversion, or the ones where keeping Publisher installed is the better long-term answer.

For the rest — old one-off prints, outdated event materials, superseded drafts — a PDF archive is enough. If you never need to edit it again, you don’t need to fight with the Word conversion.