HarborlightBefore and after
According to Memorial University's IT office and the Church of England's guidance to parishes:
Word and PowerPoint can make many of the same documents, and Microsoft points users to them. What they don't do well is the booklet: printing a folded bulletin with pages in the right order is fiddly in both.
Three reasonable paths
- Move to Word or PowerPoint. Microsoft's own path. Good for single pages, flyers and posters.
- Use a design web app. Popular online design tools have many templates, but most need an account and keep files on their servers.
- Use a simple offline layout tool. Made for weekly bulletins: real page sizes, and folded booklets that print in the right order.
That last option is Bulletin Press
Weekly bulletins, newsletters, flyers, certificates, cards and labels on real page sizes. Prints folded booklets in the right order, fills labels from a list, and saves your template for next week. Free, no account, works offline.
Bulletin Press can't open .pub files. Convert your old files to PDF to keep them, and rebuild your weekly template once.
Practical tips
- Save every .pub file you need as PDF while you still have Publisher (File, Save As, PDF).
- Keep a PDF of last week's bulletin next to you while you rebuild the template.
- Ask whoever prints the bulletin which paper size they use, and set it once.
- Memorial University OCIO — Microsoft Publisher end of life (Oct 2026)
- Church of England — Publisher retiring: what churches need to know
Microsoft Publisher, Word and PowerPoint are trademarks of Microsoft. Harborlight and Bulletin Press are independent and not affiliated with them. Plans change; check each vendor's current page for the latest details.