Quick answer: the usual culprits are missing fonts (swapped for look-alikes), linked text boxes (all the text lands in the first box, shown with a red overflow marker), linked pictures that were never inside the file, WordArt effects, and very old Publisher versions. Each has a quick fix in Free Pub Editor, listed below.
Quick diagnosis
| What you see | Likely cause | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| Font looks slightly different | Font not on your device | Usually nothing to do; widths match |
| Lines break in different places | A less common font is missing | Install the font, or pick another one |
| Red marker on a text box | Text overflows the box | Enlarge the box or trim the text |
| Next column or page is empty | Linked text boxes | Move the overflow text into the next box |
| Blank space where a picture was | Picture linked, not embedded | Insert the picture again |
| Picture in the wrong colours | Picture was recoloured in Publisher | Recolour it in a photo app and replace it |
| Plain text where fancy lettering was | WordArt | Restyle the text |
| Only text, no layout | Publisher 2000 file | Rebuild the layout from the text |
Why are the fonts different?
A .pub file names its fonts but doesn't contain them. If your computer, Mac or Chromebook lacks one, something else has to stand in. For the most common Windows fonts, Free Pub Editor uses free fonts that were designed with exactly the same letter widths ("metric-compatible"), so each line holds the same words:
| Original font | Stand-in |
|---|---|
| Calibri | Carlito |
| Cambria | Caladea |
| Arial | Arimo |
| Times New Roman | Tinos |
| Courier New | Cousine |
The letter shapes differ slightly, but the layout holds. For other fonts, such as decorative headline fonts, your browser picks a fallback, and lines may wrap differently. If you have the original font, install it on your computer and reopen the file; otherwise select the text and choose a font you like.
What does the red marker on a text box mean?
Just as in Publisher, a small red marker means the text doesn't fit and some of it is hidden. It can appear because a stand-in font is a fraction wider, or because of linked text boxes (below). To fix it, drag the box's handles to make it a little bigger, reduce the font size by half a point, or tighten the line spacing.
Why is all my text in one box?
Publisher lets text flow from one box into another, for example from column one to column two, or from page 1 to page 4. Free Pub Editor doesn't yet support those links, so it puts all the text in the first box, where much of it overflows (red marker) and the later boxes look empty.
- Click into the first box and find where the visible text ends.
- Select the rest of the text and cut it (Ctrl+X or Cmd+X).
- Click into the next box and paste. Repeat until each box is full.
Why are pictures missing or in the wrong colours?
- Missing pictures. Publisher could link to a picture file instead of embedding it. A linked picture isn't inside the .pub file, so no program can show it once the file moves to another computer. Insert the picture again from your own copy.
- Wrong colours. Publisher's picture recolouring isn't supported, so recoloured pictures show their original colours. Recolour the picture elsewhere and replace it.
- Old clip art. Clip art saved as WMF or EMF (old Windows drawing formats) is redrawn by the editor. It normally looks right; if a piece looks odd, replace it with a PNG.
Photos in JPEG, PNG, GIF and BMP come across with their cropping.
Why has my WordArt gone plain?
WordArt keeps its words but not its special effects, such as arcs, outlines and 3D shading. Restyle the text with a bold font, colour and size, or replace it with a picture of the heading.
Why does my file show only text, or not open at all?
Files from Publisher 2000 open as text only, set out page by page, so you can copy the words into a new layout. Files from Publisher 97 and earlier can't be opened yet; LibreOffice Draw may be worth a try. See what is a .pub file? for the version history.
How accurate is it overall?
In our tests so far on four real-world files (a 14-page, 24 MB school newsletter with dozens of photos, a school calendar, and Apache POI's two sample files), every file opened with its layout, and side by side with LibreOffice's rendering they matched closely. On the calendar, our tab-stop columns were more accurate: LibreOffice misread one paragraph's indent and broke it into one letter per line. That's a small sample, so if a file looks wrong in a way not covered here, please email hello@freepubeditor.com and tell us which Publisher version made it (don't send files with personal details).
Once it looks right, export a PDF. Opening for the first time? Start with how to open a .pub file online.