Why your Mac cannot open .pub files
Microsoft Publisher was only ever released for Windows. Microsoft 365 for Mac includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook, but never Publisher, and Microsoft retired Publisher altogether in October 2026. Apple's own apps, Pages and Preview, cannot read the .pub format either, so double-clicking one usually gets you a "no application" message.
The Mac options, compared
- Run Windows in a virtual machine with Parallels or VMware and install Publisher there. It works, but needs a Windows licence, a copy of Publisher, and plenty of setup for one file.
- Install LibreOffice for Mac. It is free and can import many .pub files for editing, but it is a large download and complex layouts can shift.
- Buy a desktop .pub viewer app. A few exist on the App Store, mostly paid.
- Convert it here. Drag the file into Safari, Chrome or Firefox and get every page in seconds, then save a PDF that opens with a double-click in Preview.
For most people who just need to read, print or forward the file, a PDF is all that is needed.
Step by step on macOS
- Find the .pub file in Finder. Email attachments saved from Mail are usually in your Downloads folder.
- Drag it onto the upload box at the top of this page, or click "Choose file" to pick it.
- Check the pages in the preview, then click "Download PDF".
- Open the PDF from your Downloads folder. It opens in Preview, where you can print it, annotate it or export pages as images.
Using the result in Pages, Keynote and Word
Pages cannot edit a PDF directly, but you can copy text out of the PDF in Preview and paste it into Pages, or drag a page in as an image. If you have Word for Mac, opening the PDF in Word turns it into an editable document; see Publisher to Word. For slides and social posts, save pages as PNG or JPG images instead.
Fonts on a Mac
Publisher documents are usually built with Windows fonts. The conversion happens on our servers, not on your Mac, so it does not matter which fonts you have installed. We substitute close matches for fonts we do not have and list any replaced font next to the preview, so you know what to check.