PubRescueWhat these files usually look like
- Calendars: one page per month (sometimes a year on one page), with a grid of days, a photo above the grid and birthdays or events typed into the boxes.
- Greeting cards: a sheet folded in half or in quarters, with a front picture, an inside message and sometimes a small logo on the back.
- Invitations: weddings, birthdays, showers, open houses and fundraisers, often with a decorative font, a border and RSVP details.
- Business cards: one small card design, or several copies tiled on a sheet for printing on perforated card stock.
How folded cards come out
Publisher shows a folded card as separate pages: front, inside left, inside right and back, one panel per page. When you printed, Publisher arranged those panels on the sheet so they ended up in the right place after folding. Our conversion keeps the layout as you saw it in Publisher: one page per panel, in Publisher's page order. You see every panel clearly in the preview and the PDF, and every message is editable in the Word file.
What it doesn't do is rearrange the panels onto one sheet for printing and folding. To print a folded card at home:
- Use your printer's booklet or "multiple pages per sheet" setting with the PDF, and test on plain paper first, or
- Treat the card as two single-sided printouts (front and back, then inside) and fold, or
- Rebuild the card on a card template in your new design tool, using the PDF panels as a reference.
How to convert calendars and cards
- Upload the .pub file above, or drop a folder with all your cards and calendars.
- Check the preview. Click a thumbnail to page through every month or every panel.
- Download the PDF to print or email, and the Word file to edit. The first 3 PDFs and 1 Word file of each upload are free; a one-time plan from $9 unlocks the rest.
Reusing a design for next year
- Calendars: the dates in a calendar grid are fixed in the file, so next year's days fall on different weekdays. The Word file is best for changing events and names in last year's calendar. For a new year, use the PDF as a design reference and build the grid fresh, or keep the photo pages and start the grid from a new template.
- Invitations: change the name, date, time, place and RSVP line in the Word file, then print or save as PDF. Keep edits about the same length so they fit the boxes.
- Business cards: change a phone number, title or email in the Word file. If the sheet has ten copies of the card, each copy is its own text box, so change them all, or edit one and send the single card to a print shop.
- Greeting cards: edit the inside message and signature, then print.
For how the Word file is built (page background with editable text boxes on top), see Publisher to Word.
Sharing cards and invitations online
Many invitations end up sent by text message or posted to a group rather than printed. Every converted file has JPG and PNG downloads, one image per page, so you can send the front of an invitation as a picture. See PUB to JPG and PNG.
What to do with your collection
Family calendars with years of photos, cards made for every holiday, invitations from weddings and anniversaries: these are worth keeping. Convert the whole folder to PDF in one upload so they open on any device for years, and keep Word files for the designs you'll use again. Uploading a folder keeps its structure in the download. See bulk conversion if you have a lot of them.
What to expect
- Fonts are replaced with metric-compatible substitutes so spacing stays the same; script fonts on invitations and cards may look different unless you have the original installed.
- The Word file keeps the look, with editable text boxes on top of a page background. Photos and calendar grids are part of the background. It is not a reflowable document.
- Very old files from Publisher 98 or 2000 convert with lower accuracy. Check their previews.