How to open or view PUB MS Publisher files without software
Can’t open PUB, MS Publisher files on your system? You have come to the right place. If you don’t have Microsoft Publisher or any of the third party software that can open and view PUB files, we have solutions for you and it doesn’t involve buying or installing any application.
If you have been in education long enough, you will realise that teachers have a tendency to use MS Publisher. The thing is, not many of the machines, PCs or Macs out there in the wild have Microsoft Publisher or the means to even view it. We look at multiple solutions for opening, viewing and even converting PUB files to something your machine can open, view and edit. And the best part is, it does not involve buying or installation any software.
Opening PUB files with LibreOffice Draw
There are a number of applications that will open and even edit PUB files from MS Publisher. It will have to convert it first before editing but it works. Software like the open source LibreOffice suite comes with LibreOffice Draw that lets you open PUB files. Here is a free solution but it still involves downloading and installing the software on your computer.
What about online tools
We get asked the questions:
- Can Google Drive open or view Publisher files
- Can Google Docs open or view Publisher files
The quick answer, NO. Neither Google Drive, a cloud storage solution nor Google Docs, an online document editing application will open, view or edit PUB file format. So it comes down to one of the following solutions:
1. Convert PUB to PDF or other formats using online tools
A. ZAMZAR
An online file conversion tool and it has the ability to convert PUB to PDF online. Simply upload your Publisher file, choose the format to covert to and click Convert Now. It also supports converting PUB files to other format listed below but there is a upload file size limit of 50MB.
- PUB to DOC (Microsoft Word Document)
- PUB to JPG (JPEG compliant image)
- PUB to HTML (Hypertext Markup Language)
- PUB to PDF (Portable Document Format)
- PUB to PNG (Portable Network Graphic)
- PUB to PS (PostScript)
LINK: https://www.zamzar.com
B. Online2PDF
Another tool for converting PUB to PDF online for free. It has a bigger upload size limit of 100MB per size and you can upload up to 20 files in one go. The total upload must not exceed 150MB. The way around this is to carry out your conversion in batches. The tools main function is to convert files to PDF documents. Then you can edit, unlock and merge PDF files and even export it to Word, Excel PowerPoint or JPG and more.
LINK: https://online2pdf.com
C. PublisherToPDF
Does exactly as it says, converting Publisher file to PDF online. You can drag and drop your PUB file from your desktop or upload it from Dropbox, Google Drive and OneDrive. It then converts a copy of the file and you can download it directly from the site. There is no file upload size limit. And, it will keep uploaded / converted files on the servers for six hours.
If you have received a PUB format file and wishes to view and/or edit this here are web based tools that you can use to either view or covert it.
LINK: https://www.publishertopdf.com
D. PUBtoPDF
Just like PublisherToPDF, this PUBtoPDF is a simple tool to convert PUB files to PDF. However, this is part of a family or online conversion tools mainly for eReaders. Other converter tools include ePub to Kindle, MOBI to ePub, PDF to Kindle, ePub to PDF and DjVu to PDF.
LINK: https://pubtopdf.com
E. Online-Convert
Finally, there is Online-Convert. The is a set of online document conversion tools that so happen to have what we are looking for, to convert PUB to PDF. Again, you can upload our files via drag and drop into the page, enter a URL, upload via Dropbox or Google Drive. Converting PUB to other file format is also supported:
LINK: https://document.online-convert.com
2. View PUB files using online tools
If you just want an online viewer to check out the content of your PUB file quickly, use the following:
A. ASPOSE PUB Viewer
Open the link above, drag and drop your PUB file or upload via Dropbox, Google Drive or OneDrive and click the View button. You can then choose to save your PUB pages as an image file.
B. FileProInfo
The site has a free online PUB viewer that works just like the tool from ASPOSE above. There is an upload file size limit of 150MB which should be more than enough for any of your Publisher files. Once uploaded, click One PUB File button. Other PUB related Online Tools include:
So there you have it, all the online tools you will ever need to open, view, convert and even edit PUB files all without installing any application locally. This also means that you can do this anywhere on any machine.
