Europe Is Rethinking Microsoft Office. Publisher Users Should Be Rethinking Their Files.
Across Europe, governments and public agencies are reassessing their dependence on Microsoft Office, Microsoft 365, Windows, Teams, Exchange, Azure, and other Microsoft-controlled infrastructure.
This is not simply a cost-saving discussion. The larger concern is control: control over software, control over data, control over security, and control over long-term access to public-sector content.
That does not mean every country has abandoned Microsoft Office. The more accurate story is that individual states, ministries, agencies, police forces, and public institutions are beginning to replace, reduce, or rethink Microsoft dependency where it makes sense.
Microsoft Publisher will be retired from Microsoft 365 in October 2026. Microsoft advises subscribers to convert or migrate their Publisher files before October 1, 2026, when Microsoft 365 users are expected to lose access to Publisher.
Publisher LTSC 2021 reaches the end of support on October 13, 2026. Customers with perpetual versions may still be able to install and use Publisher after support ends, but the application will no longer receive technical support, bug fixes, or security updates.
To avoid disruption, organizations should complete their Publisher-file inventory and migration before October 1, 2026. When Microsoft Publisher reaches end of life on October 1, 2026, organizations with years of .PUB files will need a practical way to open, inspect, convert, archive and reuse that content.
Europe’s Shift Toward Software Independence
One of the clearest examples is Schleswig-Holstein, a German federal state that has moved toward replacing Microsoft Office with LibreOffice as part of a broader open-source strategy. The program also includes open-source alternatives for email, collaboration, operating systems, and cloud storage. It is one of the strongest public examples of a government body actively reducing its dependence on Microsoft-centered infrastructure.
Denmark has taken a similar step at the ministry level. Its Ministry for Digital Affairs has been moving parts of its workflow away from Microsoft Office 365 and toward LibreOffice-based alternatives. The stated motivation is not only financial. It is also about making sure public digital infrastructure is not overly dependent on a small number of foreign technology providers.
Switzerland is also moving in this direction. The Swiss federal government has promoted open-source software as a central pillar of digital sovereignty, and recent reporting says Swiss authorities want to reduce long-term dependency on Microsoft products. Switzerland’s discussion is especially important because it connects software choice to public-sector independence, sensitive documents, security, and resilience.
France has its own long history with open-source adoption. The French National Gendarmerie began moving away from Microsoft Office years ago, adopting OpenOffice, Firefox, Thunderbird, and later Linux-based desktops. More recently, France has also been making sovereign-cloud decisions around sensitive public data, including moving its Health Data Hub away from Microsoft Azure to a French provider.
Taken together, these examples show a clear pattern. Public agencies are asking harder questions about who controls the software, where the data lives, what happens when vendors change strategy, and how governments can maintain access to their own documents over time.
The Overlooked Problem: Existing Microsoft Publisher Files
Much of the public conversation focuses on Microsoft Office, Microsoft 365, Windows, Teams, and cloud infrastructure. But there is another layer that may be easier to overlook: the documents themselves.
Microsoft Publisher has been used for decades by schools, churches, nonprofits, local governments, universities, small businesses, and print shops. These organizations used Publisher to create newsletters, flyers, brochures, bulletins, public notices, mailers, calendars, forms, certificates, event programs, and departmental marketing materials.
Many of those files are not sitting neatly inside modern content systems. They may be scattered across desktops, shared drives, old servers, OneDrive folders, SharePoint sites, archived disks, and print-shop customer folders.
That creates a different kind of problem.
The software may be retiring, but the content still has value.
Publisher Retirement Creates a File-Access Problem
When Microsoft Publisher reaches end of life on October 1, 2026, the issue will not simply be that Microsoft stopped supporting an application. The bigger issue is that organizations may still have years, or even decades, of Publisher files that need to be opened, reviewed, converted, edited, archived, searched, or repurposed.
A school district may need old newsletters and flyers. A church may need years of bulletins and event programs. A local government department may need public notices, brochures, or community materials. A university department may need to recover older recruitment, orientation, or event files. A print shop may need to open Publisher files sent by long-time customers.
In each case, the question is not simply, “What replaces Publisher?”
The better question is: How do we recover the content without rebuilding everything from scratch?
LibreOffice Helps, but Publisher Archives Are Different
LibreOffice and other open-source office tools can be excellent options for general productivity, word processing, spreadsheets, and presentations. But Publisher files are different.
A .pub file is not just a text document. It is a layout-rich desktop-publishing file. Publisher documents often include text boxes, placed graphics, linked or embedded images, fonts, page geometry, multi-page layouts, print settings, templates, and years of formatting decisions.
That makes Publisher migration more complicated than moving from one word processor to another. A Publisher file is closer to a small design project than a basic office document.
That is why Publisher retirement should be treated as a content recovery and layout intelligence problem, not only as an office-suite replacement problem.
Where MarkzPortal Fits
This is where Markzware’s MarkzPortal can help.
MarkzPortal gives organizations a practical way to recover and convert Microsoft Publisher files into modern, reusable formats. Instead of manually rebuilding older Publisher documents page by page, teams can use MarkzPortal to help move Publisher content into formats that are easier to review, reuse, archive, and bring into modern workflows.
A practical workflow looks like this:
Upload → Detect → Preflight → Transform → Review → Export → Reuse
For organizations facing Publisher retirement, MarkzPortal can help recover existing Publisher content, convert .pub files into modern formats, preserve visual layout where possible, and prepare content for design, print, archive, web, and AI-assisted workflows.
That matters because many organizations do not just need a new design tool. They need a bridge from old content to modern workflows.
Don’t Just Replace Software. Recover the Content.
The European move toward LibreOffice, open source, and sovereign technology is part of a larger shift. Organizations want more control over their software, infrastructure, data, and documents.
Microsoft Publisher’s retirement adds urgency to that conversation.
If an organization has years of Publisher files, waiting until October 2026 may create unnecessary risk. The better approach is to start now: inventory the files, recover the content, convert what matters, preserve the layout, and export to modern workflows.
Microsoft Publisher may be retiring, but the content created in Publisher does not have to disappear with it.
Microsoft Publisher retires on October 1, 2026.
If your organization has years of Publisher files, now is the time to recover and modernize them.
MarkzPortal helps convert Microsoft Publisher files into reusable formats for today’s design, archive, print, web, and AI-assisted workflows.
Don’t rebuild. Recover.
Recover Publisher Content Before Support Ends
Use MarkzPortal to upload, preview, and convert Microsoft Publisher files in your browser so legacy content can move into supported, reusable formats.
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Citations and Reference Links
Microsoft states that Publisher will no longer be supported after October 2026 and says Microsoft 365 subscribers will no longer be able to open or edit Publisher files using Publisher after that date.
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/microsoft-publisher-will-no-longer-be-supported-after-october-2026-ee6302a2-4bc7-4841-babf-8e9be3acbfd7
The Document Foundation reported that Schleswig-Holstein is moving approximately 30,000 PCs from Microsoft Office/365 to LibreOffice, with broader open-source infrastructure plans.
https://blog.documentfoundation.org/blog/2024/04/04/german-state-moving-30000-pcs-to-libreoffice/
Schleswig-Holstein’s official open-source strategy outlines goals around digital sovereignty, open-source software, and reduced dependency on proprietary vendors.
https://www.schleswig-holstein.de/DE/landesregierung/themen/digitalisierung/linux-plus1/Service/Downloads/_dateien/open-source-strategy_EN.pdf
The Document Foundation reported that Denmark’s Ministry of Digitalisation planned to move part of its staff to LibreOffice as part of a broader digital-sovereignty effort.
https://blog.documentfoundation.org/blog/2025/07/08/danish-ministry-switching-from-microsoft-office-365-to-libreoffice/
The Swiss Federal Council describes open source as a central pillar of digital sovereignty and discusses office automation using open-source software as both an emergency backup to Microsoft 365 and a secure environment for sensitive documents.
https://www.admin.ch/en/newnsb/qc7PbDe_ODgWby7aAxfd6
Interoperable Europe reported that Switzerland’s EMBAG law requires federal authorities to disclose source code for software developed by or for them, with goals including transparency, security, efficiency, and reduced vendor lock-in.
https://interoperable-europe.ec.europa.eu/collection/open-source-observatory-osor/news/new-open-source-law-switzerland
SWI swissinfo.ch reported in April 2026 that Swiss authorities want to reduce long-term dependence on Microsoft products and that Switzerland has been examining open-source alternatives.
https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/swiss-ai/swiss-authorities-want-to-reduce-dependency-on-microsoft/91280532
Wired reported that France’s National Gendarmerie moved from Microsoft Office toward open-source applications such as OpenOffice, Firefox, Thunderbird, and later Linux-based desktops.
https://www.wired.com/2013/09/gendarmerie-linux/
Reuters reported that France selected Scaleway to replace Microsoft Azure for its Health Data Hub, citing cloud sovereignty and concerns over sensitive public data.
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/france-swaps-microsoft-iliads-scaleway-repatriate-health-data-hub-2026-04-23/
Markzware’s MarkzPortal page describes Microsoft Publisher conversion support and export options including IDML, PDF, JPEG, PNG, TIFF, GIF, TXT, RTF, and HTML.
https://markzware.com/markzportal/convert-microsoft-publisher-files-to-idml-pdf-jpeg-png-tiff-gif-txt-rtf-html-online-markzportal/
