[X4U] Publisher files on Mac

[James S Jones]

Publisher is the worst piece of software ever released by a legitimate 
vendor. You should charge your clients at least triple you usual rates 
to work in it.

There's a reasonable chance that a larger Kinko's near you, or some 
similar workstation rental place, will have Publisher installed on at 
least one of their Windows machines. Then you have two options. If the 
workstation has the latest version of Publisher (2003?) and PageMaker 
7, open the Publisher document and save a copy in the current/new 
version. Try to open that copy in PageMaker and save it in native PM 
format. InDesign should be able to handle the conversion from 
PageMaker, producing a real file for real layout work. If the 
workstation doesn't have the latest Publisher or if PageMaker 7 can't 
open the Publisher file, do the work to make the necessary changes at 
the rental place and make a PDF of the finished product. Be sure to 
open the resulting PDF before leaving to be sure the layout didn't 
explode when converted to PostScript. With the PDF, you should be able 
to make most additional changes with Acrobat 6 or 7 or Illustrator 10 
or 11.

Caution: if you have to make the changes in Publisher, do as little as 
possible. The typical Publisher file is created with a "wizard" and is 
held together with bailing wire, bubble gum, smoke and mirrors. Go one 
step too far and attempt to make it look good and the whole thing will 
blow up in your face.

On Mar 10, 2005, at 8:06 PM, Samantha Cornell wrote:

> Does anyone know how to open Publisher files on a Mac?  I have a 
> client that emailed me a file, last minute, and needs something done 
> ASAP, but, of course, the darn file is in Publisher.  IT appears that 
> they do not actually have Publisher, so they do not have the ability 
> to export the file as a different format.
>
> Is there any solution?  I'm guessing that Pages does not open 
> Publisher files either...I don't have it (yet) but if it will do 
> this...I would be inclined to purchase it now.
>
> Otherwise, is there any other solution?