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Microsoft Discontinuing Publisher. Alternatives?

17 points by supliminal ↗ HN
Got this in the email not too long ago:

Beginning 1 October 2026, Microsoft Publisher will no longer be supported as part of Microsoft 365. Many common Publisher scenarios are available in other Microsoft 365 apps, including Microsoft Word and PowerPoint.

Action Recommended: Before 1 October 2026, convert your existing Publisher files to PDF or Word format. After this date, you will no longer be able to open or edit these files with Microsoft Publisher.

This company is wild.

Where do we go from here? Affinity? InDesign? Quark? Scribus?

15 comments

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turtleyacht
What about using a supported version of Publisher (standalone) on Windows in a VM?
JSR_FDED
A friend of mine used this as motivation for switching to a used MacBook Air M1 (today he’d probably buy a Neo) - and started using Pages to write his papers s. He watched a bunch of YouTube videos and asked a lot of questions in Google every time he got stuck. A week later he’s a happy camper.
LarryMade2
LibreOffice Draw is quite capable. Though for some better formatting (linked text boxes) you might have to use Writer, which is still good abut a bit more klunky as you are fighting the formatting of the writer document layer if you want varied text boxes....
al_borland
Since Canva bought Affinity, I’m uncertain of the future. Maybe Canva will stay true to their word, but it seems questionable based on every other company that’s made similar claims.

I actually forgot this happened until I saw Affinity Publisher was discontinued. This reminds me I need to convert my Affinity docs and migrate as well.

supliminal
It’s one thing if it was just me, I can get by with duct tape and glue and building shrines to Stallman, but I have to think about the not-so technical folks I hand things off to.

This is partly why I am exploring Scribus, as even if it’s not worked on actively it’s much less likely to just abruptly stop one day, and highly likely its successor software will have a tool to convert things over.

soundnote
Canva's operated on a freemium model for years with their own main product, and they have a lot of stuff on the Canva side they can implement into Affinity as a value add. Very little reason to expect that they'd renege on their commitments. The only real risk for that is the upcoming IPO and becoming publicly traded, IMO. The current ownership seems committed enough.
Natone
If you need to make brochures, flyers, or other layout-heavy stuff, Affinity Publisher is probably the easiest alternative.
soundnote
No sense in not trying out Affinity, I think.