How to read Publisher files

[olliehay]

Hi:

How can I read .pub files that have been sent to me? I don't have the Publisher program and apparently the other end can't convert it to anything I *can* open.

I need to open them ASAP and I can't do it.

Is there any way to overcome this? How may I view them?

Thank you for your help. Hollie

[30111987]

hmm i know with powerpoint you can get a viewer that would allow you to see them without actually having powerpoint. I did a search on microsoft, but couldn't find such a tool for publisher, sorry:( Try shearching for it on search engines like google, someones bound to have had your problem and have written a page on the subject.

[olliehay]

Yeah I've been all over the Net. There's nothing. I can't figure out what kind of archaic program it even is, that Microsoft didn't bother developing anything for it. I have a pps viewer, and on my other machine, even a Word viewer.

Thanks so much for your help. If anyone else has come across it please let me know.

Hollie

[AnnMarie]

Hi Hollie - welcome to CTH. Regretfully, there is no viewer for Publisher files. When you use Publisher (I have Publisher 2000), I see that it does offer the option to save as different file formats e.g. works, word, wordperfect etc however, when you do so, you can only save the text and not the graphics.

[olliehay]

Hi AnnMarie:

Thanks for your reply.

After hearing from you, I started to grind my teeth and thought, there must be somebody out there who's figured this out. I did find out that MS offers a 30 day trial of the program, but only on CD (which would take too long for me to wait for :( ) . It is normally 10 dollars to get the trial on CD if anyone else is interested or could be helped by the info.

As well I found a program called Quick View Plus which apparently supports 225 file types. It no longer has a free download but does let you download it immediately upon purchasing rather than waiting for a CD. Luckily I was able to receive, before I spent the money, a list of the file types it supports, and Publisher is not among them. :(

Thanks again for your help. I don't suppose anyone would know of someone actually hosting a copy of a Publisher trial anywhere that I could download?

(have to give it a shot eh?)

Hollie

[AnnMarie]

Nope, I'm sorry Hollie. CTH does not support or endorse software that is illegally obtained and we will not offer any assistance to procure it from any source.

[olliehay]

Ann Marie:

I'm sorry, I hadn't thought of that as being "illegally obtaining" it. The trial version of Publisher was until this last version, downloadable rather than available on CD. To me it would be rather like finding an older build of Winamp or anything else, hosted on someone's machine. Being I wasn't asking for a registered version, crack or hack, I saw that as legal.

I apologize.

Hollie

[AnnMarie]

No problem Hollie, I realised that you did not think that you were asking for illegal software. However, Microsoft have made the conditions of the trial offer very clear. One activation on one computer therefore anyone hosting the trial for multiple downloads would be offering the software illegally. More information here (http://www.microsoft.com/office/publisher/evaluation/trial.asp)