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Publisher replacement ideas
Hey All, Looks like Microsoft won't be supporting Publisher after Oct. I have many hundreds of pages documenting the restoration of our land that I created in Publisher. I know I'll need to convert ...
Below are the alternatives available:
- Affinity Publisher:
- A popular choice for its simplicity and affordability.
- Offers a one-time purchase (no subscription) and is compatible with macOS, Windows, and iPad.
- Scribus:
- A free, open-source desktop publishing tool.
- Great for creating professional layouts, though it might have a slight learning curve.
- Canva:
- Web-based and very intuitive.
- Ideal for creating visually appealing designs, though it may lack advanced desktop publishing features.
- Affinity Publisher:
Unfortunately, none of those "Solutions" will work for the many of us with a large number of complex documents made in Publisher. It's astonishing to me that Microsoft would kill such a great tool without a proper replacement. I did find a work-around that costs a bit of money, but does seem to be working quite well and has no restrictions while allowing a perpetual key for Publisher and Office 365 to live on the same physical computer. In summary,
- Purchase an Office 2021 Pro Plus DVD or just purchase a product license key; Put the ISO file for the DVD somewhere you can browse to. This cost me $150.
- Enable Hyper-V in system settings (you might need to restart the PC).
- Launch Hyper V manager.
- Use Quick-create to create a virtual machine (VM):
- Select Windows 11 Dev Environment (this will install with a 90-day windows license … it might be possible to use this forever and skip buying a license for Windows).
- Change settings for the VM:
- If you have a physical DVD, this might be unnecessary … When you enable local resources in the VM (below), you might be able to install directly from the physical DVD. The help online is ambiguous about whether Hyper V VMs can connect to physical DVD’s and suggest an ISO file is necessary. My VM does appear to be connecting, but I used the ISO to install Office.
- Use Virtual Hard Disk. I gave the disk 124GB, though the initial installation used "only" 65.3GB, so you can likely get away with less than 124GB.
- I gave my VM a memory allocation of 8192 MB and that works fine for me.
- Select SCSI Controller; DVD Drive; Add … select an unused “Location” in the list; Image File and browse to the ISO you saved above.
- Launch the VM (in Hyper-V manager):
- Move the slider for Display Configuration to max.
- Click on Show Options; Local Resources tab; More; Select everything (i.e. physical disks and other options). Make this default.
- Connect.
- Sign in.
- Hit Connect in the Hyper V manager.
- Start – a window will pop-up titled “Connect to Windows 11 dev environment”.
- Open the file Explorer; Open the DVD; Install Office 2021 (run Setup). The first time you run an office program it will ask you to enter the product key. This step's only necessary the first time to install Office Pro Plus. I didn't explore how to reduce the installation size, so have all Office (2021) tools inside the VM. I also haven't yet explored preventing the VM from accessing the internet and from installing updates (so Microsoft can't kill this workaround).
- You can minimize the VM window to use your normal desktop and copy/paste between environments. Physical disks will show up in the VM explorer window and you can browse to files there. I was able to open and edit the Publisher files that I had created earlier. The PDFs are exported directly from Publisher.
- Subsequently: Launch the Hyper-V manager and open the VM:
- Select the latest Checkpoint, right click and select "Connect"
- Sign in.
- If you had made the physical disks a default connection, the VM will open in the state you left it.
Good luck, and please post enhancements/cautions.