School offices leaned on Publisher for years: the weekly newsletter, sports and academic certificates, permission slips, event flyers. With Publisher removed from Microsoft 365 on 1 October 2026, those files won't open, usually right when someone needs this term's version. Here's how to get them back and keep them useful.
Before tackling the whole archive, rescue the handful of templates you use every week or every term: the newsletter layout, the certificate designs, the standard forms. Open each one in LibreOffice Draw, which is free, and save two copies: a PDF to print and share, and an ODG to keep editing. The step-by-step guide shows how.
Certificates are the files schools most often need to change, because names, dates and awards change every time. A PDF won't do for that. Keep the ODG copy. To issue a certificate, open it in LibreOffice Draw, change the text, and export a fresh PDF to print.
If your certificates used Publisher's mail merge to fill in names from a spreadsheet, the layout and the placeholder text come through, but the link to the spreadsheet doesn't survive. You'll need to set the merge up again in whichever tool you use next.
Past newsletters are a record of the school's life, and they're often asked for at
anniversaries and reunions. They don't need to be editable, just readable. A PDF of each, filed
by year and term with date-first names like 2024-T3-W6 newsletter.pdf, keeps them
findable for decades.
Forms that parents fill in by hand only need to be printable, so a PDF is enough. Forms you update each year, such as excursion details or fee schedules, are worth keeping as ODG copies too. Event flyers are usually one-offs: convert them to PDF for the record and move on.
Most schools also have a long tail of files on old shared drives. Gather every .pub file into
one folder (search for *.pub in File Explorer), keeping the existing subfolders. A
few dozen files are manageable by hand. Hundreds are better converted in one batch, so the office
isn't spending a week on it.
Many schools and districts have IT policies about which software can be installed and where files can be uploaded. Check before installing LibreOffice or using an online service, especially for documents that contain student information.
Upload the folder, with newsletters, certificates, forms and flyers, and get every file back as a PDF and an editable copy, folders kept, with a report of what converted.
You'll see page one of one of your files rescued, with the exact price, before you pay. A typical school archive falls in the $49 tier, and if fewer than 80% of your files rescue, you get a full refund.
Yes. Converted to ODG, they stay editable in LibreOffice Draw, which is free. Change the name and date, then export a PDF to print.
They can. Follow your school's privacy policy for any file containing student information, wherever you convert it.
Usually. Text, images and positions normally come through; fonts are the most common cause of small changes.
That depends on your school or district IT policy. It's free and widely used, but ask IT before installing it.
Last updated 16 October 2026.