If you’re one of the many ACE members who uses Microsoft Publisher through an Office subscription you will want to continue reading to see what action you are going to need to take within the next year so you can continue to produce your magazine.
It’s been highlighted by a couple of ACE members that Microsoft have announced that they will no longer be supporting their Publisher application from October 2026. What this basically means is that if you have a Microsoft Office subscription that you pay for each month/year then you will no longer be able to use Publisher from October 2026. That means no access to your existing magazine copies saved in Publisher format and no editing of new copies of the magazine through it either, as it will just be automatically removed from your computer. You can see the full details here: https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/office/microsoft-publisher-will-no-longer-be-supported-after-october-2026-ee6302a2-4bc7-4841-babf-8e9be3acbfd7 .
That’s potentially going to be a shock to a lot of you and get you worried. Some of the ACE committee use Publisher through their Microsoft Office subscriptions so it’s getting some of us worried too, but we’re going to share information over the coming months on what other options you might have, to give you (and us) some time to try them out and get used to producing your magazine using different software.
Note that this shouldn’t affect you if you have an older version of Microsoft Publisher that you paid for as a separate download or purchased directly from a shop on a CD or similar. The only comment to make on that is you won’t be getting updates for Publisher and should someone send you a Publisher file that has malicious code in then it could infect your computer, cause you to lose files or otherwise prevent you from being able to produce your magazine or use you computer in general, so always be careful if someone unknown does try to send you something as a Publisher file.
To start with, however, you will want to ensure that you can at least view copies of your magazine when Publisher disappears. Microsoft’s suggestion is that you export all your magazine copies as PDF files so that you can still view them. You may already do that when producing the final copy to send to your printer or share via email or your church website, but if not and you want to be able to go back and view old copies then now is the time to get on and do that. As a replacement for Publisher Microsoft, logically, makes reference to other Microsoft Office products like Word, PowerPoint and Designer. Word is going to be closest to Publisher in its handling of text and images, but unfortunately nothing like the flexibility of Publisher, making the biggest challenge of using it how you will need to adjust to formatting your magazine. Word will allow you to open any saved PDF files, but because it does not understand the layout then it will look nothing like it did in either Publisher or the PDF and will take a lot of fiddling to get back to looking how your magazine did. PowerPoint might work if you just want to do a quick poster to go up in church, but you’ll find it will be really difficult to try and format an entire magazine. Similar Designer is useful for creating single page colourful graphic images, but (currently) isn’t likely to make creating a whole magazine easy.
The “professional’s choice” would be something like Adobe Indesign. However this is going to be far beyond the needs of most of us church magazine editors both in terms of its complexity and cost (which, similar to Microsoft Office, is through a subscription). Of course, if you have access to Adobe products through your workplace or elsewhere and have experience of using them then they are going to be the logical choice.
At the other end of the scale is the Open Source application, Scribus (www.scribus.net), which has a basic look, functionality similar to Publisher and, even better, is free, though it will still take some time to get used to it. Like most Open Source software is developed and maintained by a community of volunteers, so if support is needed that is generally done via a forum and may take a while to get a response. It the advantage of being able to directly import Publisher files, and is indeed one of the few alternatives that can do so, though the import process is not perfect and will require some modification to get the document looking similar to how it did in Publisher.
Sitting between these two would be something like Affinity Publisher (https://affinity.serif.com/en-gb/publisher/). This has a lot of professional functionality and a modern look, but as a result can have a steeper learning curve. It’s available for a fixed price to purchase via the website, after a 7 day trial period. You may be able to get it for free if your church is a registered not for profit organisation (with the UK Charities Commission). This is done by first registering on the Canva graphic design web site (www.canva.com) as a not for profit organisation (using your Charity Commission registration number and details – see https://www.canva.com/canva-for-nonprofits/eligibility-guidelines/) and then signing up for an Affinity account using that same Canva account. It’s not able to import Microsoft Publisher files directly, but can import PDF documents and does a reasonable job of the formatting, though text boxes may not be the same as the original Publisher file.
We’re going to be trying out Scribus and Affinity Publisher over the coming months and will give some more feedback via Ideas Forum and the website, but if you have any experience of either Scribus or Affinity Publisher, or indeed can recommend any other currently available DTP applications, please let us know via the ACE email address ().
Update June 2025
An alternative solution has been suggested by a couple of ACE members
To allow you to continue accessing and editing your magazine using Publisher, you could change from an Office 365 Subscription to paying for and downloading Office Professional Plus 2021. This is effectively the version that you would be able to buy in a shop on a CD or DVD but available as a download, and is the last version of Office available in this format that included Publisher (Office 2024 is available but doesn’t have Publisher included). In getting this you would be able to continue accessing and editing your Publisher files just as you do now, including beyong October 2026. However, there’s a few things to consider if you do want to do this. Firstly, like Publisher itself, this will no longer be getting any updates after October 2026 for ANY of the Office applications included with it. That could put not just anything you edit using Publisher, but also Word, Excel, PowerPoint and any other Office application at risk of allowing viruses and malware to be downloaded onto your computer via infected files for those applications. Second, you will have to cancel your Office 365 subscription and uninstall it from your computer before you can install Office 2021, as they cannot be installed at the same time. Finally you need to be careful where you obtain the licence you need to allow you to run Office 2021. We’ve had this site recommended as one where you can obtain a valid licence: https://www.gamers-outlet.net/en/microsoft-office-2021-professional-plus-iso At time of sending this works out at £13.27, including taxes. This may appear considerably cheaper than an Office 365 subscription, which is due to the way the sellers obtain licences in bulk from Microsoft. The licence is also only valid to be used once, so if you replace your computer you would need to buy a new licence. The wesbite does offer other licence options that would allow you to install Publisher on additional computers or to reinstall on your computer should that be needed.
We’d advise being careful if you look to going with this option due to the lack of support after October 2026 and potential issues that may arise should the software stop working for any reason. ACE is giving this as an option based on information received from other ACE editors, but it is provided without any warranty as to its suitability for you to use or any issues that may arise from considering it. We would still recommend that you look to the other supported software that has already been suggested and take the time between now and October 2026 to get used to the software you chose.