What does a business do that needs Pub?

Question

What does a business do that needs Pub?

Anonymous

We have a lot of material that was developed using Pub.

We are OK if MS doesn't want to support it anymore. We can handle usage problems on our own.

Received email from MS that we can use PowerPoint as a replacement. But PowerPoint lacks features that Pub has. Do the people who sent out this email know that? And conversion is disrupting.

We are OK to PAY for Pub as a separate App. It is puzzling that there doesn't seem to be any way to buy a clean copy. People out there are selling stand-alone versions of Pub. I don't trust them.

Graphic-related UI tools and related features are not well standardized over the 365 suite. Neither is their user interface, which is very important for productivity.

MS can turn this around and make Pub the goto App for management support teams. A manager can come up with PPT or Excel spreadsheet or a Word document that contains graphics and then get frustrated when fine-tuning it. His support team can use the extra power in Pub to polish it up and give it back so that he can tweak it the way he wants.

Pub can become THE standard throughout 365 for graphical UI tools and this can trickle down to the development teams of the 365 suite to provide a better standard interface.

With the loss of an important part of our toolbox, I feel that the rug is being pulled out from under us and with no apparent reason. We are being forced to go outside of MS to find business solutions. I'm not sure that this is a good idea for either of us.

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

3 answers

Answer 1

Hi Black,

Thank you for posting on our Microsoft Community Support. We're happy to help you .

As far as I know, I’m sorry to say that Publisher will no longer be supported after October 2026. I understand the inconvenience this limitation has caused, and I sincerely apologize for it.

Given this situation, I completely understand the frustration of not being able to use Publisher. It definitely great improvement to the current availabilities of Microsoft 365 apps. In that case, I sincerely recommend you go to Feedback community to vote this similar feedback: (find out similar feedback, if not provide the feedback forum link Ideas · Community). Our product team actively monitors the site, and customer votes influence their priorities. Many features are developed and improved based on user feedback.

Please note that as moderators in the community, we do not have control over product design and have limited access to advanced information about Microsoft products. However, to ensure your feedback reaches the right development team, we have directed you to the correct path.

We appreciate your patience and understanding, and hopefully, Microsoft will make improvements soon.

Wishing you a great day, and sending my warmest regards to you!

Best Regards,

Clover-L - MSFT | Microsoft Community Support Specialist.

Answer 2

Thank you for your thoughtful response, Clover.

I submit that the issue belongs at the Corporate level, not in a Feedback forum for users that developers also view.

I run a BUSINESS and have invested significant time and resources to develop assets using Publisher. I have no time for disruptions like this.

We have no problem with Microsoft taking it out of 365. Understand that you have a good stand-alone product and instead of bundling it with 365, you would like to get more revenue by selling it stand-alone in the app store. But it doesn't look like you are going to do it. Instead, it looks like it's being NUKED. This is concerning.

Mind you, we would STILL buy it off the store, even if it came with a disclaimer that it's a discontinued product and Microsoft will no longer be continuing to support it.

I am not a standard 365 customer. I pay quite a bit each month for 365 Business Premium. We use Publisher for Business needs. Would even pay a few more dollars to keep it in Premium.

The decision to pull Publisher may make sense for developers. But I don't see the benefit to do this for Microsoft as a company. Has Marketing weighted in on this? I just responded to a Microsoft survey from Microsoft Marketing, where they were interested in knowing how important FUTURE-PROOFING is to my business.

The survey didn't give me a chance to comment. I would have asked them if they knew that Microsoft was about to pull off the shelf a product that businesses have been using and relying on for the past 35 years.

I request that you forward this to both Corporate and to Marketing, together with the idea I initially expressed regarding how you can use Publisher to your advantage.

In summary, here are some options that I feel would work better for Microsoft and it's reputation:

Pull it out of 365 if you must, but offer it as a stand-alone product -as is in - your store, (with no support other than needed security patches (or to maintain compatibility with Windows 12-99.)
Keep in 365 Business Premium as is, (with no support other than needed security patches (or to maintain compatibility with Windows 12-99.)
Keep it in 365 Premium as is, for a small added expense, for selected users. (Same disclaimer)
Turn this around 180 degrees and use it as the Go-To software to standardize the interface and functionality of all your graphical tools in Word-Excel-PowerPoint.

There are critical features in Publisher that POWERPOINT and DESIGNER do NOT provide for Business Users! DON"T MAKE IT APPEAR AS IF YOU ARE ABANDONING US!

H Black

Answer 3

Hi Black,

Thank you for response. We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience caused by this change. We understand that this may have affected your experience, and we deeply regret that.

We will provide your feedback to the dedicated team to ensure that your concerns are properly reviewed. Meanwhile, we will assist you step by step with the proposed solution to help resolve the issue as quickly as possible.

Thank you for your patience, and I am here to support you in any way we can!

Have a good day!

Kristen-L - MSFT | Microsoft Community Support Specialist.

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What does a business do that needs Pub?

3 answers