microsoft

Microsoft Publisher Icon of MS Publisher (2019) is a desktop publishing application from Microsoft. It is often considered an entry-level desktop publishing application, differing from Microsoft Word in that the emphasis is placed on page layout and design rather than text composition and proofreading. It is planned for discontinuation in October 2026.[1]

Overview

Publisher is included in high-end editions of Microsoft Office, which reflects Microsoft's emphasis on the application as an easy-to-use and less expensive alternative to the "heavyweights"; it also had a focus on the small business market, where firms do not have dedicated design professionals available to make marketing materials and other documents. However, it has a relatively small share of the desktop publishing market, which is dominated by Adobe InDesign and formerly by QuarkXPress.

Most Microsoft Office apps adopted ribbons for their user interfaces starting with Office 2007; however, Publisher retained its toolbars until Office 2010.[2]

Publisher has historically been less well-liked among high-end commercial print shops, compared with other desktop publishing applications. Publisher's position as an entry-level application aggravates many issues (particularly in older versions), such as unavailable fonts and embedded objects not available on service providers' machines; however, Publisher does come with tools to pack related files into a self-expanding application. Many higher-end features like transparency, object shadowing, slugs, text on paths, built-in PDF output, etc., are either not fully functional or simply unavailable (especially in previous versions). However, recent versions have greater capabilities concerning color separations and proper process coloring output. Publisher 2007 also includes the capability to output commercial press-quality PDF with embedded fonts as an optional download from the Microsoft website.

Publisher's proprietary file format is, with the exception of Adobe PageMaker, unsupported by most other applications. However, Publisher supports numerous other file formats, including the EMF (Enhanced Metafile) format, which is standard and supported across many applications and platforms. Publisher 2007 can also export in the industry-standard PDF format.

Compatibility

Several applications can import Publisher's proprietary file format (.pub) for editing with some success, including Collabora Online, LibreOffice, and Scribus. Another option is to save the document as a separate EPS file for each page in the publication, and then open the EPS files in the aforementioned applications or other applications.

Publisher supports some other file formats, including Microsoft's Enhanced Metafile (EMF) format, which is supported on Windows platforms. The trial version of Publisher can be used to view .pub files beyond the trial period.

Despite Adobe PageMaker also saving files with a .pub extension, the two file formats are unrelated and incompatible.

Versions

Microsoft Publisher 2003

Microsoft Publisher 2003

Versions of Microsoft Publisher include:

Icons

References

  1. ↑ "Microsoft Publsiher will no longer be supported after October 2026". Microsoft Support. Microsoft. 
  2. ↑ "User interface differences in Office 2010 vs earlier versions". Microsoft TechNet. Microsoft. 15 July 2011. Archived from the original on 12 April 2016. 

External links

Archived links