Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Microsoft Publisher will no longer be supported after October 2026

support.microsoft.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 71 posts

Re: Microsoft Publisher will no longer be supported after October 2026

#61

Post by Urahandystar »

nindalf wrote: post #56
bigtimesink wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure if it's accurate, but a certain nautical themed torrent directory currently lists Office 2016 as the third most popular Application torrent.

> nautical themed torrent directory What's the point of coy language like this? This is a general pattern I've noticed of people using weasel words because they think it will protect them from liability. Stop this pretence that saying "thepiratebay" is going to get you in trouble. It won't. This is a forum for adults, so let's talk like adults without bringing euphemisms and self-censorship in here. Unless you were d…

Its a interesting pattern in which people self censor due to other sites they use which will filter posts based on things like the Piratebay. Its some thing I've seen alot more in Gen Z users almost becoming slang.

Re: Microsoft Publisher will no longer be supported after October 2026

#62

Post by netsharc »

rkagerer wrote: post #41
xnx wrote: post #5

RIP. I'm very thankful that the desktop version of Publisher should be able to run in perpetuity in emulation. Compare this to any SaaS app that disappears immediately.

Yeah, imagine after 10 years you reached into your toolbox to grab your hammer and it was gone. Along with your screwdriver, measuring tape, etc.

The hammer says "you need to update" as you pick it up, "downloads" an update (bonus: it fails for no reason) and when it does succeed, it turns to a pair of scissors, but you can get the hammer functionality with a subscription to "Scissors Pro Max, Enterprise Edition".

Re: Microsoft Publisher will no longer be supported after October 2026

#63

Post by lwkl »

brendoelfrendo wrote: post #24
falkensmaize wrote: post #11

Serif makes a very capable alternative also called Publisher. I really like their software - you can buy it without a subscription and it's very polished. https://affinity.serif.com/en-us/publisher

Unfortunately, they were acquired by Canva last year, so I feel like it's only a matter of time before things go downhill.

Is Canva bad? I know a lot of non technical and non design people that use it and are really happy with it.

Re: Microsoft Publisher will no longer be supported after October 2026

#64

Post by ohgr »

derkster wrote: post #53
ohgr wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not surprised. Office 2016 is basically the "last" version of Microsoft Office. All the O365 stuff is pretty much regressive feature simplification over the top of it and in some cases abhorrent user hostile garbage (new outlook). O365 pretty much killed Office for us. We barely use it in house now. At best it's hosted email. We don't even use the calendar / contact stuff as it doesn't sync with any phones properly.…

There's still Office LTSC version, which will likely exist for the foreseeable future. I believe they require internet for activation, and are offline afterwards. https://marketplace.appdirect.com/en-US/apps/345798/office-l...

Yeah the canonical "offline" method is to use the LTSC images and activator from https://massgrave.dev/ . That's the only way to run a licensed copy of office on an airgapped network.

Re: Microsoft Publisher will no longer be supported after October 2026

#65

Post by pjmlp »

gwervc wrote: post #59
pjmlp wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Including desktop development, as one ex-advocate for WinRT, which I considered to be what .NET 1.0 should have been in first place, given the original idea of COM+ Runtime vNext, they really messed up the whole development story multiple times, always demanding a rewrite as if that is a minor issue. However, nowadays, run away from anything that resembles WinRT tooling, keep to tried and true Win32, Forms, WPF, and…

> WinRT It was obvious from day one that this would be a failure since it was strongly tied to the Metro UI (awesome on mobile, ugly as hell on desktop) and the Windows app store, all only available on an OS that never was competitive against its predecessor. Also it shipped with a .net implementation that was incompatible with the real one. I'm glad I skipped that tech entirely.

It evolved over time, by the time Project Reunion was announced in 2020, it had gotten kind of ok.

However, that incompatibility you point out, was present throughout all iterations.

Window 8 => 8.1 => 10 required rewrites, UWP/WinUI 2.0 => Win32/WinUI 3.0 dropped .NET Native and .NET 9 still isn't full AOT, C++/CX => C++/WinRT lost Visual Studio tooling and is nowadays in maintenance mode, yet gets sold as being the way for C++ devs.

Meanwhile, most of the faces on community meetings have changed since Windows 8 days, nowadays most seem fresh out of university without any Windows developer experience given the blank stares when questioned about feature XYZ becoming available, and bugs?, you only have to spend sometime digging around the Github repos.

Naturally, even the strongest advocate eventually gives up.

Re: Microsoft Publisher will no longer be supported after October 2026

#66

Post by dessimus »

netsharc wrote: post #62
rkagerer wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, imagine after 10 years you reached into your toolbox to grab your hammer and it was gone. Along with your screwdriver, measuring tape, etc.

The hammer says "you need to update" as you pick it up, "downloads" an update (bonus: it fails for no reason) and when it does succeed, it turns to a pair of scissors, but you can get the hammer functionality with a subscription to "Scissors Pro Max, Enterprise Edition".

To be fair, if a hammer is sitting unused in a toolbox for 10 years, you might find it does "need an update", as the handle might have dried out and rotted, needing replacement.

Woodworkers and machinists probably spend as much time on tool upkeep as programmers do futzing with updates, new plug-ins, etc.

Re: Microsoft Publisher will no longer be supported after October 2026

#67

Post by arp242 »

I used Publisher to edit the local scouting magazine about 15/20 years ago. I inherited that from the previous guy. It's one of the few Microsoft products that I actually enjoyed using: I felt it worked pretty well.

Eventually I migrated to Scribus, because I could use that from my FreeBSD desktop. I'm cool like that.

> Microsoft 365 subscribers will no longer be able to open or edit Publisher files in Publisher

Ugh ... Local desktop software mostly just keeps working, even old versions (we used a pretty old Publisher version, as we had a license for that). I know there's a year and a half of lead-time, but lots of smaller publications that are already on Publisher and work fine now need to migrate. Great.

And Word and PowerPoint have a completely different workflow; IMHO it's not really a replacement. It's like deprecating Vim and telling everyone Emacs is the replacement. Like, no: yes, it can do everything Vim can, but it's completely different (even with the "Vim mode" plugin things).

Re: Microsoft Publisher will no longer be supported after October 2026

#68

Post by TMWNN »

Urahandystar wrote: post #61
nindalf wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> nautical themed torrent directory What's the point of coy language like this? This is a general pattern I've noticed of people using weasel words because they think it will protect them from liability. Stop this pretence that saying "thepiratebay" is going to get you in trouble. It won't. This is a forum for adults, so let's talk like adults without bringing euphemisms and self-censorship in here. Unless you were d…

Its a interesting pattern in which people self censor due to other sites they use which will filter posts based on things like the Piratebay. Its some thing I've seen alot more in Gen Z users almost becoming slang.

Everyone using such slang should unalive themselves

Re: Microsoft Publisher will no longer be supported after October 2026

#69

Post by 12_throw_away »

dessimus wrote: post #66
netsharc wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The hammer says "you need to update" as you pick it up, "downloads" an update (bonus: it fails for no reason) and when it does succeed, it turns to a pair of scissors, but you can get the hammer functionality with a subscription to "Scissors Pro Max, Enterprise Edition".

To be fair, if a hammer is sitting unused in a toolbox for 10 years, you might find it does "need an update", as the handle might have dried out and rotted, needing replacement. Woodworkers and machinists probably spend as much time on tool upkeep as programmers do futzing with updates, new plug-ins, etc.

> To be fair, if a hammer is sitting unused in a toolbox for 10 years, you might find it does "need an update", as the handle might have dried out and rotted, needing replacement.

And hey the only place left to get hammers sells 50 brands of identical, low quality hammers (all clearly made in the same factory) under a variety of inscrutable, all-caps brand names like AOXIUN and KUDUO.

So actually maybe the advice for hammers and software is the same ... if you rely on it, make sure you can build it yourself.

Re: Microsoft Publisher will no longer be supported after October 2026

#70

Post by exceptione »

VladStanimir wrote: post #58
exceptione wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Scribus is on a whole different level as a direct competitor Adobe Indesign. Scribus is for professional dtp.

I think Scribus was mentioned as an alternative to MS Publisher.

Scribus and Indesign are for professionals. MS Publisher is not.

Yes, Scribus could do anything Publisher can as it provides a superset of features compared to the latter. But I think it would be confusing for people that don't understand color profiles, offset press and all the relevant stuff professionals care about. The bells and whistles are there for a reason.

Post reply on HN