I wish! You wish! We wish.. but no go..

We’d all love to see one of these but, unfortunately Microsoft hasn’t deigned to give us one. There are, however some options you can use. If you can ask the person who created the PUB file to open and save it in a different format you can then view that – for example it can be saved as a Tiff format file.

If you have a PUB file but no access to Publisher, try one of the free online PDF file conversion tools that can handle Publisher files. I like PDFOnline, it handles PUB files up to 2Mb in size and all you need to do is to browse to upload the file to their server, type a name for the PDF file they’ll send you in return and type your email address. In minutes you’ll have a PDF version that you can read using Adobe’s free Acrobat Reader software.

If you’re wanting to share your Publisher files with others who don’t own publisher then try a program like the free PDF converter PrimoPDF which installs as a printer driver allowing you to create your own PDFs as easily as printing from Publisher.

Perhaps best of all is your option to download and install the trial version of Microsoft Publisher 2007. It works for a limited time to allow you to open, read and edit Publisher documents. After the trial period is over, you can only open, view and print existing Publisher documents – pretty much what a viewer program would do in my book!

Helen Bradley