Open Publisher files on any platform
OfficeIMO.Publisher decodes Publisher 2002-and-later publications into positioned pages, master pages, styled text stories, native tables and embedded images. Every load carries a recovery report that names approximations, omissions and unassessed content. The PDF export in this example comes from OfficeIMO.Publisher.Pdf:
dotnet add package OfficeIMO.Publisher.Pdf
using OfficeIMO;
using OfficeIMO.Publisher;
using OfficeIMO.Publisher.Pdf;
using var publication = PublisherDocument.Load("brochure.pub");
foreach (var story in publication.TextStories)
Console.WriteLine(story.Text);
OfficeConversionReport report = publication.SaveAsPdf("brochure.pdf");
Console.WriteLine($"Reported loss: {report.HasLoss}");
Useful for
- Archiving legacy newsletters, flyers and brochures as PDF or SVG.
- Extracting complete story text and table rows for search and indexing.
- Updating text, layout, pictures and table cells in existing publications with an explicit fidelity report.
- Composing publications in memory with masters, linked frames, pictures and tables, then rendering them.
Packages
OfficeIMO.Publisher: native reading, supported source edits, in-memory authoring and SVG.OfficeIMO.Publisher.Pdf: multi-page PDF through the shared OfficeIMO PDF engine.OfficeIMO.Reader.Publisher: stories, tables, page inventory and image descriptors for OfficeIMO.Reader.
Current limits
Publisher 97/98 and 2000 files are rejected, and encrypted or damaged files are not salvaged. Unchanged publications save as exact copies; edits are saved only within documented profiles. New publications render to SVG and PDF but cannot be saved as native .pub files. Rendering uses managed layout, so line breaks can differ from Publisher.
Start with the Publisher guide or review the support contract.