Microsoft Publisher is retiring, and venues that built table plans in it need a replacement. Purpose-built table plan software keeps guest names, menu choices and allergies on the plan and prints place cards from it.
In short: Microsoft Publisher was removed from Microsoft 365 on 1 October 2026, and support for Publisher 2021 ends on 13 October 2026. Existing perpetual copies keep opening but are unsupported. If you used Publisher for table plans and place cards, Word and PowerPoint will handle the layout, but they will not stop the retyping. Purpose built event software will.
If you run banqueting at a hotel, a golf club or a restaurant group, there is a decent chance one of your coordinators has a folder of .pub files going back years. Table plan templates. Place card sheets. Menu cards. Publisher was never sold to venues as event software, but it was on the Office install, it printed nicely, and it did the job.
That folder just became a problem.
What is happening, and when
Publisher was removed from Microsoft 365. Subscribers can no longer open or edit .pub files in Publisher.
Support ends for the one-off purchase versions, Publisher 2021 and Publisher LTSC 2021.
Microsoft announced the retirement in late 2024, so this has been coming for two years. If you have a perpetual copy of Publisher 2021 installed, it will keep running after the 13th. It just will not be supported or updated again, which makes it a poor place to keep anything you depend on.
What about your existing .pub files
There is no conversion tool, and other software generally cannot open .pub properly. The practical advice, while you still have a working copy on a machine somewhere:
- Open anything you want to keep and export it as a PDF, so you have a readable record of the design.
- Note down the fonts, sizes and brand colours you use on place cards, because you will want to recreate them.
- Do not assume the files will open next year. Treat anything still in .pub as temporary.
The four options, honestly
Microsoft points people to Word and PowerPoint. That is sound advice for a poster. For table plans it is worth being clearer about what each option actually solves.
| Option | Good for | What it does not fix |
|---|---|---|
| Word | Simple menu cards, letters, anything mostly text. Already installed, nothing to learn. | Awkward for positioning a room layout. Your seating is still a drawing, so every change gets retyped into the kitchen paperwork. |
| PowerPoint | Closest feel to Publisher for layout. Good for a printed plan on a board in the foyer. | Same core problem. The slide does not know who is sitting where, and nothing downstream updates. |
| Design tools | Attractive templates, easy for a non designer, good looking place cards. | A design tool, not an event system. No allergen record, no chef sheet, no link to guest data. |
| Event software | Holds the seating as data, so plans, place cards and kitchen reports all come from one place. | More than a layout tool, so there is setup involved. Worth it if you run events regularly. |
The question worth asking
Before picking a replacement, it helps to be honest about how much of the job Publisher was actually doing.
Making the plan look right was perhaps a fifth of it. The rest was everything that flowed from the plan. The place cards, which had to match the seating. The chef’s sheet, which had to match the choices. The allergen list, which had to match both. The front of house print, which had to match all three.
Publisher did not help with any of that, because a layout tool has no idea who is at table nine. So when a guest moved on the Thursday, you made the same change in four documents and hoped you caught them all.
If you replace Publisher with Word, you have solved the file format. You have not solved the Thursday.
What to do this month
- Find out who is affected. Ask your coordinators what they built in Publisher. It is often more than you think, and it is usually one person who has quietly been doing it for everyone.
- Export the back catalogue to PDF while a working copy still exists, so nothing is lost even if nothing is editable.
- Separate layout from data. Decide which of your Publisher documents were genuinely design work, and which were really just a way of displaying guest information.
- Replace the design work with Word, PowerPoint or a design tool. That part is straightforward.
- Replace the guest information work properly. This is the piece worth getting right, because it is where the hours go and where mistakes reach the plate.
How Creventa handles it
Creventa was built for this specific job. You build the seating plan by dragging guests onto tables, and that assignment drives everything else. Place cards carry the guest name, their menu choice, their dietary preference and a clear flag on any allergy, in your fonts and your brand colours. The chef’s report, the food pass, the front of house report and the guest list all print from the same event.
Change the seating and they all change together, because there is only one version of the truth. Allergens are tracked against the 14 mandatory ones plus anything non standard a guest declares, with medical allergies kept separate from preferences.
It also does the part of the job Publisher could only approximate. You can add your room layout as a background image, taken from a CAD drawing or an existing floor plan, and build the seating over it to scale. Table sizes are set to their real dimensions and you can measure the distances between them, so you find out whether a layout actually fits before the day rather than on it.
You can also hand the seating to the client. The host logs in, assigns their own guests to tables, and you stop receiving spreadsheets to re-key.
More on this: a Publisher alternative built for table plans and place cards, or read how to make a table plan for a large event and how to print place cards for events.
Questions we are hearing
Has Publisher definitely gone?
Yes. It left Microsoft 365 on 1 October 2026 and support for the one-off purchase versions ends on 13 October 2026. Microsoft announced it in late 2024.
Can I open a .pub file in anything else?
Not reliably. There is no proper conversion route. If you still have a working copy of Publisher on any machine, export what you need to PDF now.
Is there a free replacement?
For layout, yes, Word and PowerPoint are already on your Office install and will cover most of what you were doing visually. For the guest data side of a table plan there is no free equivalent, because that is a different job.
We only do a handful of large events a year. Is software overkill?
Possibly. If you run two or three a year, PowerPoint and a careful spreadsheet will get you through. If you are running weekly functions, Christmas parties or anything with dietary requirements at volume, the retyping is costing you more than you think.
Does anything let me work to scale, like Publisher never could?
Purpose built event software does. In Creventa you can drop your room layout in as a background image, taken from a CAD drawing or a floor plan, then build the seating over it to scale, set the real size of your tables and measure the distances between them. That is how you find out a layout does not fit before the day rather than on it.
Andrew Norton, Head of Product, Creventa. Andrew leads product at Creventa after years working with hospitality venues on the admin gap between a confirmed booking and event day.