.docx), plus RTF and, optionally, a plain-text file you can open anywhere. Anything it cannot read is named in the report rather than dropped silently.
Leaving Microsoft Publisher? Get your files out first.
Get your .pub content out before the door closes.
Searching for a Microsoft Publisher alternative? We are not one — we do not give you back your page design, and we are not something to keep designing newsletters and flyers in. If that is what you need, look at an editor such as Korva, which says it opens, edits and exports .pub files as print-ready PDFs. What we do is get the content out of old .pub files you no longer need to edit — read on if that is your problem.
Microsoft Publisher reaches end of support in October 2026, and Microsoft’s
own guidance is to convert your files before 1 October 2026.
From that date, Microsoft 365 subscribers will no longer be able to open
.pub files at all — years of newsletters, flyers and booklets
could become files nothing will open. Publisher Rescue is a desktop
tool that reads your own .pub files, read-only, and gets your text
into Word (.docx), the pictures stored inside as ordinary image files,
and a plain-language report of what came out — all on your own computer.
Supported operating systems: Windows 10 and 11 (64-bit), and macOS 10.15 or later on Intel and Apple silicon Macs. One purchase covers both — you get each download.
- Your original .pub is never changed — read-only
- Stays on your computer — nothing uploaded, no account
- Buy once — yours forever, no subscription
A recovery tool from High Caliber. Independent — not affiliated with Microsoft.
Up to three computers · Windows 10 and 11 (64-bit) or macOS 10.15 or later · 14-day money-back guarantee.
.pub file opened
Text → Word .docx
Images (PNG, JPEG, TIFF, BMP, metafiles)
PDF & report
What it does — 30 seconds
A quick look at Publisher Rescue.
What the tool actually does: read your Publisher files locally, recover the text and images, and leave the original untouched. Captions on — no sound needed.
Publisher Rescue — by High Caliber. This is an animated overview of what the tool does — an illustration, not a screen recording of the app. Your original file is only ever read, never changed.
The problem
Decades of documents shouldn’t retire with the app.
Churches, schools, charities and small businesses hold years of newsletters,
service sheets, flyers and booklets in Publisher’s .pub format.
Microsoft’s own guidance is to move your content out before support ends. But the
moment you no longer have a running copy of Publisher, a .pub is just
an unopenable file. Publisher Rescue is built so that file isn’t a dead end: open
it, read what’s inside, and get your content out — without a subscription, and
without sending anything anywhere.
Reads onlyYour source
.pub is opened as an input and never written back to.Local by designRecovery runs entirely on your own computer — no upload, no account. Your files never leave your machine. The only things ever sent are your licence key and a device identifier (a one-way hash, not your name and not your file names), to Lemon Squeezy, to confirm your purchase.
Open exportsContent comes out as a Word
.docx, RTF, plain text, standard image files, a PDF and a readable report — no lock-in.What it recovers
What Publisher Rescue gets back for you.
A Publisher file is a structured container. Publisher Rescue reads that structure directly — no copy of Publisher needed — and pulls out the parts of your document it can honestly recover. Here is the real scope of the tool as built. Where something can’t be read, it is reported as missing — never invented.
Honest scope: Publisher Rescue recovers your text into Word (.docx),
RTF and plain text, the pictures stored in the file as ordinary image files, a PDF and a
per-file report. It names the Publisher format family the file was saved
in — Publisher 2000, or Publisher 2002–2019, which share one version marker — rather than
the exact release. The .docx is text-faithful: it carries
your words reliably, but it is not a replica of the original page, and the text comes back
as a plain flow. No character or paragraph format table is decoded, so sizes, bold, italic and colour
are not carried over; no font name is applied to the output. The tool says so on every
file, rather than pretending otherwise.
Supported operating systems: Windows 10 and 11 (64-bit), and macOS 10.15 or later on Intel and Apple silicon Macs. One purchase covers both — you get each download.
Your files stay yours
Comfort and control, built in from the start.
These aren’t nice-to-haves — they’re the point of a recovery tool. This is how Publisher Rescue behaves, and how it’s built to behave.
Read-only on your originalThe tool opens your
.pub only to read it. It never modifies, moves or overwrites the source — your original stays exactly as it is.Nothing uploadedRecovery runs offline on your machine, and your files never leave it. There is no hidden upload path. The only things the app does send are your licence key and a device identifier (a one-way hash, not your name and not your file names), to Lemon Squeezy, to confirm your purchase.
No lock-in, your own filesExports are open formats you already use — Word
.docx, RTF, plain text, PDF, PNG, JPEG, TIFF, BMP, JSON; plus any WMF/EMF/PICT metafiles, saved out as the files they were stored as. It works only on files you own; it does no password cracking and no protection bypass.Compatibility & scope
What’s in scope — stated plainly.
We separate what the tool recovers from what it doesn’t, so there are no surprises. Anything out of scope is reported gracefully, never mis-converted.
Recovered — Publisher 2000–2019
.pub — Publisher 2002–2019 .pub — Publisher 2000 (newer support — run the free preview on your file first) Export → Word.docx + RTF + plain text (your text flow)
Export → PNG / JPEG / TIFF / BMP (embedded images)
Export → WMF / EMF / PICT metafile pictures, decompressed and saved as real files (a metafile-aware viewer such as Word or LibreOffice may be needed to open one; not converted to PNG/JPEG or drawn into the PDF)
Export → PDF (recovered content + a notes page listing what wasn’t rebuilt)
Export → JSON recovery report (what was & wasn’t found)
Out of scope (stated honestly)
Publisher 97 / 98 & earlier — different format A replica of your page design — neither the.docx nor the PDF reproduces it
Character & paragraph styling — sizes, bold, italic and colour are not carried over
WordArt, master-page artwork, colour schemes, shape fills & table cell layout
Publisher 2000 shape positioning on every file — its earlier-encoded page-layout directory may not decode on a given file (text and images are still recovered)
Password-protected / DRM content — no cracking, ever
The layout PDF leaves out characters outside the basic Latin set — £, é, accented letters and curly quotes — from the text on the page. The Word, RTF and plain-text files carry them in full.
Note on version scope: Publisher Rescue targets Microsoft Publisher 2000 through 2019, and names the format family a file was saved in rather than the exact release — Publisher 2002 through 2019 all write the same version marker, so one label covers them. For Publisher 2000 files the text and images path is in the build, but no genuine Publisher 2000 file has been through the tool, and its earlier-encoded page-layout directory may not decode on a given file — where it doesn’t, the text and images are still recovered and the report says the shapes were not positioned. Publisher 97/98 and earlier are reported as out of scope rather than being mis-converted.
Note on multi-page documents: this is a known limitation. A page the tool cannot rebuild — for example one whose only frame sits in Publisher’s off-page work area — is reported as a shortfall rather than passed off as a full recovery, and is never counted.
Supported operating systems: Windows 10 and 11 (64-bit), and macOS 10.15 or later on Intel and Apple silicon Macs. One purchase covers both — you get each download.
Why now — the honest version
There’s a real deadline — and no countdown timer on this page.
Microsoft’s deadline: convert your files before 1 October 2026
Publisher leaves Microsoft 365 that day — subscribers can then no longer open
.pub files
That’s Microsoft’s own published guidance — “convert your existing files to another
format before 10/1/2026” — not a date we invented, and there is no ticking
clock on this page. (If you own a perpetual copy of Publisher 2021 it will still run
after that day, unsupported.) The sensible move is simply to make sure you can still
get your content out before that day arrives. Publisher Rescue is built for exactly
that moment: a one-time, local, read-only way to lift the text and the pictures out
of your own .pub files. We’d rather you rescue your work early and keep it
safe than find out too late that nothing will open it.
Free and manual options included, not just ours —
read the Publisher file guides:
What happens to my .pub files when Microsoft Publisher retires? ·
How to open a .pub file without Microsoft Publisher ·
How to convert hundreds of .pub files without opening each one ·
How to get the text and images out of a .pub file ·
How to open .pub files on a Mac ·
A Publisher archive plan for churches, schools and charities.
See it work on your own files first
Check what’s recoverable before you pay a penny.
Download Publisher Rescue and open one of your own .pub files. Without a
licence it runs a free preview: it tells you how many pages, text stories
and images it can find inside that file, and confirms your original was opened read-only
and left unchanged. Saving the recovered files is what the licence unlocks.
So you can find out whether it handles your files before deciding — and if it doesn’t do what this page says for your files, there’s a 14-day refund.
Download the free preview
Buy a licence — £79
Windows 10 and 11 (64-bit) · macOS 10.15 or later on Intel and Apple silicon · code-signed, and notarised by Apple on the Mac
Pricing
£79 one-time. Yours to keep.
Publisher Rescue is a one-time purchase, in keeping with every High Caliber recovery tool — pay once, yours to keep, no subscription, for opening your own files. Licence for one person on up to three computers — for example your Mac and your PC, or work and home. Email support@highcaliberapplications.com to move it. The app re-checks it with Lemon Squeezy from time to time and keeps working offline for up to 21 days between checks.
Publisher Rescue
£79 one-time · three computers
Recover your text into Word (.docx) plus RTF and plain text, the pictures stored in the file as ordinary image files, a PDF of the recovered content with a notes page, and the page size and rebuilt-page count — from your own .pub files, with the plain-language recovery report on every run. Windows and Mac. Buy once — and you can preview what’s inside a file before paying.
14-day money-back guarantee: if it doesn’t do what this page says for your files, email support@highcaliberapplications.com within 14 days and we’ll refund you in full. Prefer to check first? Run the free preview on your own file before you buy.
FAQ
Straight answers before you buy Publisher Rescue.
Can I try it before I buy?
Yes. Download it and open one of your own .pub files — without a licence it runs a free preview that reports how many pages, text stories and images it can find, and confirms your original was opened read-only and left unchanged. Saving the recovered files is what the £79 licence unlocks. If it then doesn’t do what this page says for your files, there’s a 14-day refund.
Will it change my original .pub file?
No. Publisher Rescue opens your file read-only — to read it, never to write to it. Your original stays exactly as it is, and everything recovered is saved separately.
Does it upload my files anywhere?
No. It’s a local desktop tool: recovery runs entirely on your own computer, and your files never leave it. There’s no hidden upload path. The app does contact Lemon Squeezy to check the licence key you paste in — and re-checks it from time to time, working offline for up to 21 days between checks. Your licence key and a device identifier (a one-way hash, not your name and not your file names) are the only things it ever sends.
Which computers does it run on?
Both. Publisher Rescue runs on Windows 10 and 11 (64-bit) and on macOS 10.15 or later, on Intel and Apple silicon Macs. That matters here, because Publisher itself is a Windows program and the person holding the files is usually on a PC. One purchase covers both: after you buy, the Mac download and the Windows download are both on your order page, and the same licence key activates both.
Which files will it open?
Microsoft Publisher .pub files from Publisher 2000 through 2019. Publisher 2002–2019 is the mature path. Publisher 2000 support is newer, and its earlier-encoded page-layout directory may not decode on a given file — where it doesn’t, the text and images are still recovered and the report says the shapes were not positioned. Run the free preview first and it will show you exactly what it can see in your file. Publisher 97/98 and earlier use a different format and are reported as unsupported rather than mis-converted.
What exactly will I get out?
Your text as a Word document (.docx) plus an RTF file and a plain-text file; the pictures stored in the file as standard image files (PNG, JPEG and TIFF saved as stored, Windows bitmaps rebuilt as BMP, WMF/EMF/PICT metafiles decompressed and saved as real files); a PDF carrying the recovered content and ending in a notes page that lists what could not be rebuilt; the page size and the number of pages rebuilt; and a plain-language and JSON report of exactly what was and wasn’t recovered. Open formats only — no lock-in.
Can I get my text into Word?
Yes. Publisher Rescue exports your recovered text as a Word document (.docx) — handy for the Word-centric church, school and charity documents Publisher was so often used for. Honest scope: the .docx is text-faithful, carrying your words reliably, but it is not a replica of the original page, and the words arrive as a plain flow. Sizes, bold, italic and colour are not carried over — and the report says exactly that for every file rather than guessing.
Does it give me back my page design?
No, and we won’t pretend it does. It recovers your content — the text into Word, the pictures as image files, a PDF and a per-file report. Neither the .docx nor the PDF is a reproduction of your original design: fonts, sizes, bold/italic and colours are not reproduced, and WordArt, master-page artwork, colour schemes, shape fills and table cell layout are not rebuilt. The PDF itself says so on every page and lists what was left out on its notes page. If a faithful-looking page is what you need, a PDF exported from Publisher itself is the better output, and we would rather tell you that.
How does the page count work?
The number reported is the number of pages the tool actually rebuilt, and it equals the number of layout pages in the PDF you receive. It is never a claim about how many pages your original had — if your document has more pages than that, the difference is pages we could not rebuild, and the report says so. The file’s internal page-chunk census is reported separately, labelled as a count of internal structures and explicitly not a page count (these include master pages and empty template pages, so this number is always higher than the real page count).
Is this a Microsoft product?
No. Publisher Rescue is independent and not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to Microsoft Corporation. “Microsoft Publisher” and “Publisher” are trademarks of their respective owner, used here only to describe which files the tool reads. It works on your own files — it does not crack, bypass or defeat any protection.
Independent — not affiliated with Microsoft. Publisher Rescue is an independent recovery tool. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, sponsored by, or connected to Microsoft Corporation. “Microsoft Publisher” and “Publisher” are trademarks of their respective owner, referenced here solely to describe the file format this tool reads (nominative use). Publisher Rescue works only with files you already own and have the right to access; it performs no DRM removal, password cracking, or circumvention of technical protection. All product and file-format names are the property of their respective owners.