Publisher to PDF
Convert Microsoft Publisher .pub files to PDF.
Click to upload or drag & drop
Select a Microsoft Publisher file (.pub)
How to use the Publisher to PDF
- 1Choose the .pub file
Drop the Publisher document onto the box above, or click it to browse for the file.
- 2Start the export
Press Convert to PDF. The layout is opened server-side and its pages are written out, in order, as one document.
- 3Save the PDF
The finished document lands in your downloads folder on its own.
Examples
| Input | Output |
|---|---|
8-page newsletter | 8-page PDF, same order |
Font not installed on the server | Substituted, so lines can rewrap |
CMYK swatches from Publisher | Written as RGB |
Bleed set up for trimming | No crop or bleed marks added |
Photos placed in the layout | Embedded in the PDF |
Password-protected .pub | Refused with an error |
The .pub file nobody can open
Microsoft Publisher occupies an odd corner of Office. There has never been a Mac edition, it is missing from several Microsoft 365 subscriptions, and it is the one Office application a new laptop is least likely to have. So a .pub file — a church newsletter, a school flyer, a tri-fold brochure, a menu — regularly arrives with somebody who has no way to look at it. Turning it into a PDF settles that in a single step: the design becomes a document that opens on a phone, in a browser, and at a print counter, with its page order and layout intact.
What is really happening to your file
Publisher itself is not running anywhere in this process. The .pub format is read by an independent import filter inside the LibreOffice engine on our servers, which reconstructs the page geometry, the text frames, the placed images and the colour values, then prints that reconstruction to PDF. On the sort of documents Publisher is usually used for, the rebuild is close. It remains a rebuild, though, and that is why the question worth asking is not whether it will work but which details might land a millimetre from where you left them.
Where a layout can drift
- Typefaces. Only the font name travels in a .pub file. Anything unusual is swapped for the closest match available, and substituted letterforms take slightly different widths, which is what nudges a line of text.
- Colour model. Swatches you mixed as CMYK for print are exported as RGB. On screen they look right; against a press proof they can read a shade differently.
- Trim and bleed. Artwork that runs off the edge still runs off the edge, but the PDF carries no crop marks or bleed marks, so a printer trimming to size will want their own imposition.
- Booklets. Pages come out in reading order, one document page per PDF page. Folding a four-up saddle-stitched booklet is a job for the print driver, not something baked into this file.
Once the PDF exists
From that point it is an ordinary PDF and the rest of the toolbox applies. A twenty-page newsletter full of full-bleed photography can easily outgrow an email attachment limit, in which case run it through Compress PDF. If the Publisher document was only one component of something larger — a cover, a price list, a booking form — Merge PDF puts the parts into a single file in the order you want them.
Why the file has to be uploaded
Your browser has no concept of what is inside a .pub file. It is an undocumented, closed binary format, and the only software able to interpret it is a full desktop office suite — which is precisely what waits on the other end of this upload. Your document travels over an encrypted connection, is opened inside a workspace created for that one request, and the workspace is destroyed, taking the original and the PDF with it, as soon as your download has been handed over.
Frequently Asked Questions
I am on a Mac and I do not own Publisher. Will this still work?
That is exactly the situation this page exists for. Publisher has never shipped a macOS version, and on Windows it is left out of several Microsoft 365 plans, so a .pub attachment is a dead end for a large share of the people who receive one. Nothing has to be installed on your side: the layout is opened by an office engine running on our machines and handed back as a PDF that Preview, any phone and every browser already know how to display.
Which versions of Publisher files can be opened?
The reader is a clean-room implementation of the .pub format rather than a copy of Publisher, and it targets the binary files the application has written from the late 1990s through to the current desktop release. Ordinary flyers, newsletters and brochures from across that span normally come through intact. A file damaged in transit, or one locked with a password, is refused with a clear error rather than producing a half-drawn page.
Some text has shifted and my headline font looks wrong.
Publisher records which typeface each text frame uses, not the typeface itself, so a licensed display font sitting on your PC is not available where the conversion runs. The nearest installed face stands in, its letterforms are a fraction wider or narrower, and a line that just fitted can wrap early and push the rest of the frame down. Body copy in the usual office fonts rarely moves at all; it is bold display type across a masthead where you notice.
Can I send the PDF straight to a commercial printer?
For a copy shop, an office printer, or a proof a client needs to sign off, it is ready as it is. For a press run, ask first: colours are written as RGB rather than as CMYK separations, no crop or bleed marks are added around the trim edge, and what you get is a plain PDF rather than a PDF/X file. Plenty of printers accept that happily and convert at their end, but it is a two-minute question worth asking before the job is on press.
Can I get an editable copy back, or a Word version?
No. One .pub goes in, one PDF comes out, and there is no editing stage in between. If the design itself still needs work, that has to happen in Publisher or another page-layout application before the export. Afterwards the result behaves like any other PDF, so a photo-heavy newsletter that is too big to email can be compressed, and several exported pieces can be bound together into one pack.
What does it cost, and is anything stamped across my artwork?
Nothing, and no. There is no account to create, no trial period, and no logo printed over the design. One Publisher file per run, up to 100 MB, which is generous even for a booklet full of photographs.