Microsoft Publisher (full name Microsoft Office Publisher) is a desktop publishing application from Microsoft. It is often considered to be an entry-level desktop publishing application, and to provide superior control over page elements to Microsoft Word but inferior to page layout programs such as Adobe Systems' InDesign and Quark, Inc.'s QuarkXPress.

Publisher has historically been less well-liked among high end commercial print shops, compared with other desktop publishing applications. It is a Windows-only program, in industries with a significant proportion of systems running Apple's Mac OS. Publisher's position as an entry-level application aggravates lots of issues such as fonts unavailable and embedded objects not available on service providers' machines (in all fairness, Publisher does come with tools to pack related files into a self-expanding application). Many higher end features like transparency, object shadowing, slugs, text on paths, built-in PDF output, etc. are either not fully-functional or simply unavailable. However, recent versions have greater capabilities concerning color separations and proper process coloring output. "Publisher 12" currently in beta also includes the long awaited capability to output commercial press quality PDF with embedded fonts.

Publisher 2003 is bundled with Microsoft Office 2003 Small Business and Professional Editions. This reflects Microsoft's emphasis on Publisher as an easy to use and less expensive alternative to the "heavyweights" and also its focus on the small business market where firms do not have dedicated design professionals available to make marketing materials and other documents.

Most alternatives to Publisher, with the exception of Adobe PageMaker, lack a Publisher import facility; however, Publisher can export to EMF (Enhanced Metafile), which is widely supported in other applications.

Versions

---

Versions of Microsoft Publisher include:

• 1991 Microsoft Publisher for Windows
• 1993 Microsoft Publisher 2.0
• 1995 Microsoft Publisher 3.0 for Windows 95
• 1996 Microsoft Publisher 97 (Windows 95)
• 1998 Microsoft Publisher 98 (Windows 9x)
• 1999 Microsoft Publisher 2000 (Windows 9x, ME)
• 2001 Microsoft Publisher 2002 (Windows 9x, ME, 2000, XP)
• 2003 Microsoft Office Publisher 2003 (Windows 9x, ME, 2000, XP)
• 2007 Microsoft Office Publisher
• 2008 Microsoft Vista Publisher (for 64bit OS)

Desktop publishing software | Microsoft Office | Windows-only software

Microsoft Publisher | Microsoft Publisher | Microsoft Publisher | Microsoft Publisher | Microsoft Publisher | Microsoft Publisher | Microsoft Publisher | Microsoft Publisher | Microsoft Publisher | Microsoft Publisher