About BrochureBoss
Microsoft retired Publisher. Your Publisher work still needs somewhere to go. Bring the files with you.
The problem
In October 2026 Microsoft removed Publisher from Microsoft 365 and ended support for the boxed versions. A great many flyers, bulletins, newsletters, and menus were made in it, and most of the people who made them are not designers. They’re office managers, church secretaries, and owners who learned Publisher once and got good at it. That work needs a new home now. (Dates from Microsoft)
Who is building this
I have been building software and websites since 1999, starting in the Navy and then through two decades of running my own businesses. I have watched small organizations get stranded by discontinued software more than once. It’s always the same story. The tool goes away, and someone ends up rebuilding a decade of work from scratch or paying for a subscription they can’t afford.
BrochureBoss exists so it goes better this time. What it gives you is a place to keep working, a file you keep, and no monthly bill standing between you and your own documents.
I said it wouldn’t open .pub files
For most of this year that’s exactly what this page said. Publisher’s format is undocumented and I didn’t want to promise something I couldn’t deliver, so I told people to export a PDF and rebuild by hand.
Then I built the import anyway. You pick a .pub file, it converts, and your text and pictures land in an editable document. The first real letterhead I tested it on came through with the artwork missing, which turned out to be Publisher storing the logo as a background fill rather than a picture. That’s fixed, and it’s the kind of thing you only find by running actual files through it.
It’s an approximation, not a clone, and the app tells you what it skipped every single time. I’d still rather set that expectation up front than have you find out on deadline.
Why not Canva or Adobe Express
Canva and Adobe Express are built for people who enjoy designing. BrochureBoss is built for people who just need the bulletin done by Thursday.
It’s boxes on a page, the way you already worked in Publisher: text here, a picture there, lined up to the margins. Text flows from one box to the next, page numbers live on a master page, and a mail merge runs off a spreadsheet. The things you used Publisher for.
Every project downloads as a .bboss file you keep on your own computer. After watching Publisher go away, owning the file matters.
Built by Pat Albert, who has been shipping software since 1999, and supported by his Palm Desert Geeks team in Palm Desert, California. Email or call and a real person answers. BrochureBot, the assistant in the corner of every page, is an AI that can answer most questions any time and passes the rest to us.
Timing, plainly: Browser beta now. Downloadable desktop app planned for early 2027. Publisher’s retirement in October 2026 is why this exists. That date has passed, and BrochureBoss is built to keep working for years after it.