Please keep publisher

Publisher can be used simply, but also offers many suprisingly advanced features that even Adobe InDesign doesn't have.

I am a graphic designer and have been using Adobe software for twenty years, and Publisher is so useful for me to create templates and other deliverables that I can share with colleagues without requiring them to have or be familiar with Adobe software.

But even on top of that, Publisher has far more extensive print settings that don't exist in InDesign, such as printing multiple layouts on one sheet of paper at correct size with bleed and crop marks, and there are several workflows where it is quicker and more useful for me to work in Publisher for my own projects instead of InDesign or Illustrator.

I have used PowerPoint extensively to create digital designs, even creating my own custom design tools in VBA. I can say with this knowledge that PowerPoint is not an alternative to Publisher! PowerPoint doesn't support bleed or crop marks and it can't make slides smaller than one inch square. It only works in RGB and not CMYK, so your designs don't print with accurate colors. Even when working digitally, PowerPoint doesn't give you export resolution options, meaning that if you want multiple resolutions, you will need to create multiple files where you change the slide size and adjust all the content to match. You can export to different resolutions using VBA code, but most people don't know that VBA even exists, let alone the code to do this. Microsoft's own solution for this is to do a registry edit, which is absolutely ridiculous. https://dotnet.territoriali.olinfo.it/en-us/troubleshoot/microsoft-365-apps/powerpoint/change-export-slide-resolution

The idea that Word is an alternative to Publisher is an even bigger joke than PowerPoint, it isn't even worth the time to type out.

My guess is that they couldn't figure out how to shove Copilot into Publisher, so now it gets the ax like WordPad (RIP). Which is funny because they aren't even suggesting people to use the crappy Designer web app anymore like they did in their previous announcement about shutting down Publisher. I don't understand why software that they don't update needs to be removed. They could just leave it in there, or make it an optional download.