.pub PDF
Convert a .pub file to PDF
Turn a Publisher layout into a PDF anyone can open or print.
Choose the file you want to open
or drag it onto this page
Any Publisher file, from the 1990s onwards. Most open in less than a second.
From your files, your email or your downloads.
Your file never leaves this device.
Nothing is uploaded. Load this page, turn off your internet, and it still opens your file.
- Free, any number of pages
- No sign-up
- No watermark
- Nothing to install
Opening
A second or two. This happens on your first visit only.
Opened on this device
The same tool, set up for a different job:
This page is about the PDF that comes out. If you only want to read what is in the file, the page that opens it is quicker.
A PDF is the one thing you can send to somebody without asking first what they have installed. It is what a print shop wants, what a committee can read on a phone, and what will still open in ten years.
Choose your .pub file and it becomes a PDF on this page, on your own device. Nothing is uploaded, there is no queue, and there is no daily limit on how many you do.
Why a PDF rather than anything else
A .pub file is only readable by the program that made it, and that program is on fewer and fewer machines — Microsoft has retired Publisher, and it is no longer part of Microsoft 365. Every year, the number of people who can open what you send goes down.
A PDF carries its own fonts and pictures inside it, so the page arrives looking the way it left: the same margins, the same line breaks, the same photograph in the same corner. It is also the format every printer, every council office and every school will accept without a conversation about it.
The trade is that a PDF is finished. Nobody can alter the date on your notice by accident, and equally nobody can correct a typo without going back to the original. Keep the .pub if you will need to change it next year.
Which setting to choose
There are three, and the right one depends entirely on where the PDF is going.
| Where it is going | Choose | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Printed on the office printer | Normal | The original page size, a few hundred kilobytes a page. Right far more often than not. |
| Sent to a print shop | Best quality | Pictures at full resolution. A large file, and they will want it. |
| Emailed to forty people | Smaller file | Pictures reduced to screen resolution. Fine to read, not for printing. |
If you are unsure, Normal is right for almost everything.
What changes when a layout becomes a PDF
The fonts stop being a problem
A .pub file names its fonts but does not carry them, which is why a Publisher document can look different on two machines. A PDF carries the lettering inside it, so what you see is what the recipient sees, even on a computer that has never had those fonts.
Clip art and drawings do not come across
Photographs survive the conversion; clip art, arrows and decorative borders do not, and where one is missing the PDF keeps an empty frame the same size so nothing shifts. Worth knowing before you send the result to a print shop — the reason is on the page that opens the file. If the drawings matter, ask whoever made it to save the PDF from Publisher instead.
Colours may look slightly different in print
Screens make colour out of light and printers make it out of ink, so a strong blue on screen can print a shade duller. A print shop can correct for this if you ask.
The page size is kept
An A4 newsletter stays A4; a folded card stays a folded card, with its pages in the order Publisher had them. Nothing is scaled to fit anything.
Once you have the PDF
On a phone you can send it straight on to somebody from this page — it goes from here into whichever app you pick, without passing through us. On a desktop it saves to your downloads folder like any other file.
A multi-page document becomes one multi-page PDF, not a folder of separate files. A fifteen-page order of service arrives as fifteen pages in the right order.
Questions people ask
Which setting for a parish newsletter?
Normal, if it is going on the office printer or by email. Best quality only if a print shop is running off two hundred copies.
Can I convert several files at once?
Not yet — one at a time. Each takes well under a second, so a handful is quick, but it is one choose-and-save each.
Why is the PDF larger than the .pub file?
Because it carries its fonts and its pictures at printable resolution, where the .pub only referred to fonts installed on the author's computer. Choose Smaller file if size matters more than print quality.
Can I get the text back out of the PDF afterwards?
Yes — the text stays as text, so it can be selected and copied in any PDF reader. It is not flattened into a picture.
Is my file uploaded anywhere?
No — the conversion happens in this page, on your own device. How to check that for yourself.