Can LibreOffice open .pub files?

Does LibreOffice really open Publisher files?

Yes. LibreOffice's own help lists an import filter called "Microsoft Publisher 98-2010" for Draw (LibreOffice Help). It's built on libmspub, a library the Document Liberation Project created by reverse-engineering the format, which Scribus also uses (The Document Foundation).

The Document Foundation calls Draw "the quickest way to open, view, edit and manage" Publisher files, while admitting it "is not a desktop publishing application". That's a fair summary of what we found.

How did we test it?

We took four real .pub files and opened each in LibreOffice Draw and in Free Pub Editor, then compared them page by page:

• a 24 MB, 14-page school newsletter full of photos;
• a school calendar laid out with tab stops;
• two sample files from the Apache POI project's test set.

Four files is a small sample, so treat this as a practical check rather than a benchmark. Your files may behave differently.

What did LibreOffice do well?

• Overall layout. Pages, pictures and text boxes landed in about the right places on all four files.
• Big files. The 24 MB newsletter opened, so photo-heavy files aren't a problem in themselves.
• It's a full desktop app. Once open, you have Draw's complete set of tools, and it works offline.
• Good exports. Draw's PDF export is solid and has plenty of options.

What went wrong?

• Text was shrunk to fit. In several boxes Draw made the text smaller so it would fit, instead of keeping the original size. The result fitted, but no longer matched the original design.
• The calendar broke. One paragraph in the calendar was laid out with one letter per line, running down the page as a thin column. Free Pub Editor kept the tab-stop columns lined up as they were designed.
• No .pub saving. Draw saves as .odg or exports PDF and pictures. It can't write .pub, and it can't save a Word file either.
• It's a drawing program. Draw is built for diagrams and single pages. Editing a long newsletter there is workable but clumsy compared with a page-layout tool.

How big is the download?

LibreOffice installs the whole office suite, not just Draw. When we checked on 26 October 2026, the installers for version 26.8.1 on the official download server were 358 MB for Windows (64-bit) and 285 MB for Macs with Apple silicon (The Document Foundation). That's fine on home broadband, slower on a rural connection, and not possible at all on a locked-down school or work computer where you can't install software.

LibreOffice or Free Pub Editor: which should I use?

Choose LibreOffice if you already have it installed, want a full office suite anyway, or need to convert a whole folder of files using its command-line tools (see converting many .pub files).

Choose Free Pub Editor if you can't or don't want to install software, you're on a Chromebook or iPad, or you want to keep editing the publication with Publisher-style tools: master pages, text that flows between boxes, mail merge, printing several business cards per sheet.

Nothing stops you using both. If a file looks wrong in one, try the other. Our guide to why a .pub file can look wrong explains the common causes, such as missing fonts.

What about Scribus?

Scribus is a free, open-source desktop publishing program, and it uses the same libmspub library to import Publisher files (The Document Foundation). It's closer to Publisher in purpose than Draw is, but it also needs installing and has a steeper learning curve. We haven't tested its import ourselves.

How do I open a .pub file in LibreOffice?

1. Download LibreOffice from libreoffice.org and install it.
2. Open LibreOffice and choose File → Open.
3. Pick the .pub file. It opens in Draw.
4. Check every page, especially text sizes and tabbed lists.
5. Use File → Export as PDF to make a copy to share, or save as .odg to keep editing.

Common questions