MS Publisher replacement options

Sac Arrow

Sac Arrow

Touchdown! Greaser!
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Snorting his way across the USA
Background: I use MS Publisher to create my book covers. Microsoft will not offer MS Publisher in MS Office after September of '26 and will pull it from subsequent updates in Office 365. This um, will kind of put me out. It does exactly what I need it to do. Microsoft states that they intend on replacing its functionality with other existing programs such as Word and Power Point. Well, yeah, I could probably force one or the other to do what I want but a lot of existing work is lost.

Options:

Use Photoshop, Corel Draw, or the like as a replacement. Problems - steep learning curve and an inability to export existing MS Publisher files to an editable format, plus high cost.

Use Libre Office Draw. Problems - yes it will actually open a native MS Publisher file (good) but a lot of formatting is lost, such as image recolorization, transparency and text shadow effects (bad.) Those can probably be restored going backwards, and implemented going forward. At least the template is there. It's a workable but suboptimal option.

Buy a standalone copy of the latest MS Office that isn't 365. I'm really upset with my IT guy for replacing the Office 2016 on my laptop with 365. Problem, copies of legit older versions seem to be hard to get plus why should I have to.

Any other bright ideas?
 
Never allow that computer onto the internet ever again? I doubt it will delete itself without internet access.
 
Frankly, if it's that important to you, I'd just buy a cheap used laptop in a pawnshop, install MS Publisher, then (as @2-Bit Speed said above) never connect it to the internet and never use it for anything other than Publisher. Shuffle data back and forth to it using a USB stick.
 
Half Fast said:
Frankly, if it's that important to you, I'd just buy a cheap used laptop in a pawnshop, install MS Publisher, then (as @2-Bit Speed said above) never connect it to the internet and never use it for anything other than Publisher. Shuffle data back and forth to it using a USB stick.
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The judges also would have accepted a VM.
 
And this is why I'm never going to pay for software/tools that I can't actually own. This subscription cloud-based BS has gone too far.

Scribus seems to be an option used by other people with the same problem.

I know this might sound blasphemous, but there's also Pages on the iOS side.
 
There is NOTHING like MSPublisher, what an amazing piece of software that was. I still use an old version in a VM on my Mac because nothing else hits quite like it did.

Honestly the closest thing I've come to Pub is online charting tools like Lucidchart or Miro. Those two will have the most "familiar" feel and shallow learning curve. No WordArt or other fun things, but... worth a try, I think both have free tiers.
 
Half Fast said:
Frankly, if it's that important to you, I'd just buy a cheap used laptop in a pawnshop, install MS Publisher, then (as @2-Bit Speed said above) never connect it to the internet and never use it for anything other than Publisher. Shuffle data back and forth to it using a USB stick.
Click to expand...

Actually that's not an entirely unworkable option. I already have the cheap used laptop - I'm due for an upgrade anyway. You're right, if I disconnect it from the Internet, I guess I could keep using MS Publisher on it for the foreseeable future. The downside is that I can't easily edit from multiple computers. Right now I have my working documents on my Onedrive, keeping backups on the local computers between home and the office.
 
Sac Arrow said:
Actually that's not an entirely unworkable option. I already have the cheap used laptop - I'm due for an upgrade anyway. You're right, if I disconnect it from the Internet, I guess I could keep using MS Publisher on it for the foreseeable future. The downside is that I can't easily edit from multiple computers. Right now I have my working documents on my Onedrive, keeping backups on the local computers between home and the office.
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Make sure the version you put on that laptop doesn't require periodic check-ins with a server. Some software will log you out, requiring you sign in through an online portal.
 
schmookeeg said:
There is NOTHING like MSPublisher, what an amazing piece of software that was. I still use an old version in a VM on my Mac because nothing else hits quite like it did.
Click to expand...
Right? Sometimes even a blind squirrel finds a nut. Of course, when management finds out, they need to stick a knife in it so they can reinvent it poorly and keep the gravy train going :D
 
I've a similar situation. I do poster presentations at various meetings. I use Publisher for making a rough draft, and I send that to MARCOM to make it look pretty. I can set the page size to match the poster, and I can see that everything fits without looking crowded. All of us get MS publisher at work. The MARCOM department copies the text and my data into Adobe Illustrator to create the final product. Illustrator creates vector graphics (like Publisher), but can't read the Publisher files directly- you'd need to go through an intermediate file format such as PDF. I'm told it has a steep learning curve. Photoshop can make some vector graphics but it is really designed for raster graphics (images). Illustrator isn't cheap either.

I used to use (as many people do) powerpoint for this purpose, but I noticed it will resize text in a text box to make it fit. So you get boxes with different size text.
 
AV8R_87 said:
And this is why I'm never going to pay for software/tools that I can't actually own. This subscription cloud-based BS has gone too far.
Click to expand...

Unfortunately this seems to be the direction industry is moving towards. Even auto manufacturers are experimenting with subscription features in newer cars.
 
2-Bit Speed said:
Make sure the version you put on that laptop doesn't require periodic check-ins with a server. Some software will log you out, requiring you sign in through an online portal.
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That's why you image the HDD and always boot the VM with the RTC set for 1/1/2008. Snapshot mode is also handy.
 
Cap'n Jack said:
I've a similar situation. I do poster presentations at various meetings. I use Publisher for making a rough draft, and I send that to MARCOM to make it look pretty. I can set the page size to match the poster, and I can see that everything fits without looking crowded. All of us get MS publisher at work. The MARCOM department copies the text and my data into Adobe Illustrator to create the final product. Illustrator creates vector graphics (like Publisher), but can't read the Publisher files directly- you'd need to go through an intermediate file format such as PDF. I'm told it has a steep learning curve. Photoshop can make some vector graphics but it is really designed for raster graphics (images). Illustrator isn't cheap either.

I used to use (as many people do) powerpoint for this purpose, but I noticed it will resize text in a text box to make it fit. So you get boxes with different size text.
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Just for sharts and giggles, I saved a Publisher cover document as a PDF, and opened it up in Libre Office Draw. It actually did open it and convert it to a correct looking (although lower resolution) image. The blocks were all there, except they were all, including the text boxes, converted to raster images. So, that isn't going to work.
 
Half Fast said:
Frankly, if it's that important to you, I'd just buy a cheap used laptop in a pawnshop, install MS Publisher, then (as @2-Bit Speed said above) never connect it to the internet and never use it for anything other than Publisher. Shuffle data back and forth to it using a USB stick.
Click to expand...
+1
 
I switched to the full up Adobe suite a while back. I use a combination of Illustrator and Acrobat (occassionally doing photoshop). I've also been playing around with firefly, their AI graphical manipulation program. This picture took me about 20 minutes to create (starting with a picture of my plane sitting on the ground with the canopy open (and me at the controls). It will be this years Xmas card...
 

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Sac Arrow said:
Just for sharts and giggles, I saved a Publisher cover document as a PDF, and opened it up in Libre Office Draw. It actually did open it and convert it to a correct looking (although lower resolution) image. The blocks were all there, except they were all, including the text boxes, converted to raster images. So, that isn't going to work.
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Your experiment is certainly an indicator, but software that reads PDF renders it differently- some will keep vectors, some won't.
How do you render your final version of your book that is published? Do you do it yourself, or have someone do the layout for you? If you work with someone, do they have any suggestions?

Another possibility- can you export the Publisher files as .EMF or .WMF? I'll check in a few hours if Publisher can do that. I know that my colleagues prefer me to save my structures and chromatograms for illustrations as those formats because they are vector. I rough-out a poster with snips and text, then replace the snips with the vectors before sending the rough draft to MARCOM, but i don't save the publisher that way.
 
Cap'n Jack said:
Your experiment is certainly an indicator, but software that reads PDF renders it differently- some will keep vectors, some won't.
How do you render your final version of your book that is published? Do you do it yourself, or have someone do the layout for you? If you work with someone, do they have any suggestions?

Another possibility- can you export the Publisher files as .EMF or .WMF? I'll check in a few hours if Publisher can do that. I know that my colleagues prefer me to save my structures and chromatograms for illustrations as those formats because they are vector. I rough-out a poster with snips and text, then replace the snips with the vectors before sending the rough draft to MARCOM, but i don't save the publisher that way.
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I have farmed out my some of my covers, but on the last few I've settled on a theme and layout which I do myself. I start with a Kindle compliant cover size and resolution, add a background image which I will recolorize and adjust the contrast, overlay some recolored images with some transparency, then add (or rather edit) the title text. So, most of the work has already done when I produce a new cover. The end product is a jpeg image which I save as.

Yes Publisher will save as a .wmf or .emf. I tried putting an emf form of a cover in to Draw, and some of the text was butchered and it was rasterized into a single image.
 
Sac Arrow said:
I have farmed out my some of my covers, but on the last few I've settled on a theme and layout which I do myself. I start with a Kindle compliant cover size and resolution, add a background image which I will recolorize and adjust the contrast, overlay some recolored images with some transparency, then add (or rather edit) the title text. So, most of the work has already done when I produce a new cover. The end product is a jpeg image which I save as.

Yes Publisher will save as a .wmf or .emf. I tried putting an emf form of a cover in to Draw, and some of the text was butchered and it was rasterized into a single image.
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There's a problem with Draw (presumably Libre Office Draw) because just about everything else I (and MARCOM) use takes a .EMF or .WMF and treats it as a vector, including any embedded text.
The chromatogram here is an .emf (at least before ACS did the layout):
Same here (EMF into Illustrator and thence to PDF):
All of the chromatograms and structures here are .EMF files, via Taylor and Francis:
I'm working on a book now that contains both EMF and WMF being brought into FrameMaker.

My point is that WMF and EMF files work very well elsewhere. The other possibility is that Publisher isn't doing a good job of saving as an EMF or WMF, but I suspect Libre Draw because the peptide link above was printed as a rather large poster presentation, yet LibreDraw didn't handle your PDF well. I've needed to save Publisher files as PDF for printing on a large format printer so I can see if it is readable, and verify that an explanation flows smoothly when I stand in front of it, and that always scales nicely. I sometimes have JPEG images as well that print to that scale (3 to 4 feet by 4 to 6 feet) without problems.

Can saving as EPS help?

EDIT:
AI claims that LibreOffice draw can open PUB files - based on your experience, not very well! :rolleyes:
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Cap'n Jack said:
There's a problem with Draw (presumably Libre Office Draw) because just about everything else I (and MARCOM) use takes a .EMF or .WMF and treats it as a vector, including any embedded text.
The chromatogram here is an .emf (at least before ACS did the layout):
Same here (EMF into Illustrator and thence to PDF):
All of the chromatograms and structures here are .EMF files, via Taylor and Francis:
I'm working on a book now that contains both EMF and WMF being brought into FrameMaker.

My point is that WMF and EMF files work very well elsewhere. The other possibility is that Publisher isn't doing a good job of saving as an EMF or WMF, but I suspect Libre Draw because the peptide link above was printed as a rather large poster presentation, yet LibreDraw didn't handle your PDF well. I've needed to save Publisher files as PDF for printing on a large format printer so I can see if it is readable, and verify that an explanation flows smoothly when I stand in front of it, and that always scales nicely. I sometimes have JPEG images as well that print to that scale (3 to 4 feet by 4 to 6 feet) without problems.

Can saving as EPS help?

EDIT:
AI claims that LibreOffice draw can open PUB files - based on your experience, not very well! :rolleyes:
View attachment 147420
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That's right, it will open .pub files and not well. What gets lost in my case is the picture formatting and text shadow effects. I'm sure it's possible to reapply them, but the controls and menus of Draw are greatly different than in Publisher. It's an option.

But I don't really need to convert any of my old Publisher files, or at least I wouldn't unless I wanted to change a cover for some reason. I just would like to at least use them as templates.
 
Sac Arrow said:
but the controls and menus of Draw are greatly different than in Publisher.
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I could deal with that. It seems Micro$oft word often moves controls and menus between versions now. My employer pushes every upgrade on us. And the browser version has almost no resemblance to the desktop version.
 
Cap'n Jack said:
I could deal with that. It seems Micro$oft word often moves controls and menus between versions now. My employer pushes every upgrade on us. And the browser version has almost no resemblance to the desktop version.
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It just occurred to me that your overview said that Corel Draw could open publisher files. I thought when I looked it up, it didn't have that ability but now I need to find someone who has it to try it for me.
 
Sac Arrow said:
It just occurred to me that your overview said that Corel Draw could open publisher files. I thought when I looked it up, it didn't have that ability but now I need to find someone who has it to try it for me.
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I's not my overview- AI made the claim. I hope it actually works rather than almost works. I haven't used Corel in a long time. You can try it for 15 days:
www.coreldraw.com

Graphic design software with CorelDRAW Graphics Suite

Creativity meets productivity with CorelDRAW Graphics Suite, a professional graphic design software for vector illustration, photo editing, layout & more.
www.coreldraw.com www.coreldraw.com

I don't know if it is easy to get rid of them if it doesn't work within that time. I used to use them for tracing data in the old days when it was presented as bitmaps, and making vector graphics. They have a list of file formats on the "features" page but I didn't see PUB there.
 
So here's where I'm at so far...

I've played around with Libre Office Draw. I can pretty much recreate the text and shadowing, as well as put some transparency on the overlay graphics. But, I cannot recolorize the background image to impart a sepia effect. I think there is some brightness and contrast controls but I haven't found them yet. Imparting a transparency comes close to doing the same thing.

I tried Word and Powerpoint as a means of recolorizing the background photo. They use the same image editing tools, which will offer preset recolor schemes, none of which will work.

It occurred to me that I had an account with Canva. They have an image recolorization feature that will work. In fact I could probably do the whole thing in Canva if I wanted. So, I guess I have a workable option going forward. Just not as nice as Publisher.
 
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