How to convert a Publisher file to Word

Can Word open a .pub file directly?

No. Word has never been able to open Publisher files, and Microsoft doesn’t offer a .pub import for Word. Microsoft’s own advice for the Publisher retirement is to convert your files to PDF or Word. In practice, “Word” means going through a PDF first.

So every route below has the same shape: .pub → PDF → Word. The only difference is how you make the PDF.

First: what do you actually need from the file?

It’s worth deciding this up front, because “a Word version” can mean three different things:

• Just the words, to reuse an article, a prayer list or a schedule in something new. A text-only Word file is perfect, and it’s the cleanest result.
• The look, to print the file again or keep a record of it. Then you don’t need Word at all. A PDF keeps the layout exactly as converted.
• The look, and the ability to edit it. This is the hardest one. Word rebuilds the page as flowing text, so pictures and columns tend to move. For small edits to a designed page, LibreOffice Draw (free) usually keeps the layout better than Word does. For a weekly bulletin or newsletter, rebuilding the template once in Word is often the better long-term fix.

Method 1: If you still have Publisher

If you have a one-time-purchase copy (Publisher 2016, 2019 or 2021), or a colleague does, start here. Publisher makes the most faithful PDF.

1. Open the .pub file in Publisher.
2. Choose File > Save As, pick PDF as the file type, and save. You can also use File > Export > Create PDF/XPS Document (Microsoft’s steps).
3. Open the PDF in Word and let Word convert it (the steps are above).

Publisher can also export straight to Word, but only the text. Microsoft’s own help page says you can’t save the whole publication, with text, graphics and layout, as a Word document in one step. Use it when you only want the words.

Method 2: Free, without Publisher

1. Install LibreOffice (free for Windows, Mac and Linux).
2. Open the .pub file. It opens in LibreOffice Draw.
3. Check the pages, then choose File > Export as > Export as PDF.
4. Open that PDF in Word and click OK when Word offers to convert it.

Word’s PDF conversion (Microsoft calls it PDF Reflow) works best on documents that are mostly text. Line and page breaks may land in different places, and designed pages need the most cleanup. Office Watch tested Microsoft’s PDF-to-Word route on real Publisher files and found that it technically works, but the results were poor for anything layout-heavy.

Method 3: Use our converter for PDF, Word text and an editable copy

The converter on this site gives you several formats from each .pub file in one go:

• PDF, print-ready, to open in Word or keep as a record.
• DOCX, text only: the words in reading order, ready to paste into a new Word template. It doesn’t include the layout or pictures, and we label it that way on purpose.
• ODG, an editable copy for LibreOffice Draw that keeps most of the layout.
• PNG and JPG images of each page.

You can drop in one file, a folder, or a ZIP. You see a free, watermarked preview of every page for the first 10 files in a batch before you pay, and one clean file is free per email address. After that it’s a one-time payment: $5 for up to 10 files, $15 for up to 60, $29 for up to 300, or $59 for up to 2,000. Files that fail to convert don’t count, there’s no account to create, and everything is deleted after 24 hours. See pricing, or start on the converter page to convert a .pub file to PDF and Word text.

If you need a whole archive in Word, Microsoft hasn’t released a bulk .pub-to-Word tool, according to a Microsoft Q&A answer. Our bulk conversion guide covers the options.

Extract just the text from a .pub file

Often you don’t need a Word layout at all, just the words: a prayer list, a column, a recipe, last year’s annual report. Two ways to pull the text out without Publisher:

• Copy it from LibreOffice Draw (free). Open the .pub file, click into a text box, press Ctrl+A (Cmd+A on a Mac) to select its text, then copy and paste into Word. It goes one box at a time. One quirk helps here: plain LibreOffice puts the whole story into the first box of a linked chain, so copying from that box gets the complete article.
• Use the text-only DOCX from our converter. Every .pub file in a folder gets a Word file with all its words in reading order, including text that had overflowed its box. It’s the quickest route when you have many files, or when you want to search old newsletters for a name or date.

If you still have Publisher, it can also export the text to Word, as described in Method 1.

Tips for tidying the Word version

• Fix layout from the top down. Sort out the first column or box, then the next. Changes early in a Word document push everything after them.
• Set picture wrapping. Click a picture, choose Layout Options, and pick Square or In Line with Text to stop it jumping around.
• Use a table for columns. If converted columns misbehave, a two- or three-column table without borders is easier to control than text boxes.
• Start from a template next time. Word has bulletin, newsletter, program and flyer templates. Microsoft also points Publisher users to its free templates on Microsoft Create. Paste your text-only content into one of those instead of fighting a converted layout.

Related guides

• How to open a .pub file without Publisher
• What is a .pub file?
• Microsoft Publisher alternatives, including Word, Canva and Affinity
• Microsoft Publisher end of life: dates and options