For churches and nonprofits
Keep your church's Publisher files, before the deadline.
For thirty years, Publisher made the weekly bulletin, the monthly newsletter, the order of service, and the festival flyer. When it shuts down in 2026, all of that is a folder of files nothing can open. The good news: saving them takes about ten minutes.
Why this hits churches hardest
Publisher was the church office.
No other tool made the fold-over booklet bulletin as easily, so parishes, congregations, and small nonprofits leaned on it more than anyone. The work usually lives on one office computer, made by a volunteer or a part-time secretary, backed up rarely.
That is exactly the setup most exposed by the shutdown: a deep archive, a single machine, and no IT department. Converting the whole folder to PDF now turns decades of work into files that will always open.
"We use Publisher for our church, too. It is ideal for formatting bulletins. I use the 8.5 by 11 fold-over booklet format. I'm not sure how I would accomplish this with any other software."
How it works
Save the whole archive in three steps.
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1
Find the bulletins folder
The folder on the office computer where the .pub files live, subfolders and all. That is everything you need.
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2
Drop it into PubKeep
Upload the whole folder at once, in the browser. Nothing to install. Each file becomes an exact PDF.
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3
Download and keep them
You get a zip in the same folder shape, ready to save to the drive, share, or reprint any Sunday.
Fold-over booklets stay intact
The 8.5-by-11 booklet layout comes out exactly, page for page, imposition and all.
Private with member data
Files are stored under a random id, never by name, a person never opens them, and they are removed after you download.
One pack covers the archive
First 2 files free. A $49 pack covers 250 files, enough for most parishes' full history.
And next Sunday's bulletin?
Keep publishing, too.
Saving the archive handles the past. For new bulletins, Canva is a common free choice for nonprofits, with templates volunteers can pick up quickly. If you would rather keep working from your existing .pub files, the PubKeep desktop app opens them natively and keeps the layouts editable, with no copy of Publisher needed. See the full rundown in Publisher alternatives.
Questions
Questions from church offices.
Yes. A PDF keeps every page exactly as Publisher drew it, including fold-over booklet layouts, page for page and font for font. Nothing is re-flowed.
Yes. PubKeep takes a whole folder of .pub files at once, subfolders included, and returns a matching zip of PDFs plus a report of anything that failed. You do not upload them one by one.
Your uploads are stored under a random job id, never by name, a person never opens them, and they are removed on a fixed schedule after you download. A failed file is never charged. See our privacy page for the details.
Yes. For new bulletins, Canva is a common free choice for nonprofits. To keep editing your existing .pub files, the PubKeep desktop app opens them natively.
The first 2 files are free. A $49 pack covers 250 files, which is enough for most parishes' full archive of bulletins and newsletters.
Keep reading
Related guides.
Microsoft Publisher end of life
The dates, what changes, and the three ways to keep your work.
How to open a .pub file without Publisher
Every method that works in 2026, honestly compared.
Microsoft Publisher alternatives
What to move to, for editing versus just keeping your files.
Convert .pub to PDF
The bulk converter, pricing, and how it works.
Ten minutes, one folder
Save your bulletins before Publisher goes.
First 2 files free, just your email.