Arabic and Hebrew Publisher files: right-to-left text that reads the right way

If you made newsletters, school sheets, invitations or prayer schedules in Arabic or Hebrew, you know Publisher handled them well. You typed from right to left, the letters joined, the paragraphs sat against the right margin, and the page looked the way you meant it to.

Then you tried to convert one. Maybe the words came out backwards. Maybe every Arabic letter stood alone, as if someone had cut the word apart with scissors. Maybe the text read correctly but hugged the left edge of the frame. On a wedding invitation or a community notice, that looks careless, and it isn't your fault.

What goes wrong in a bad conversion

A .pub file stores your text in reading order: the first letter you typed comes first. The program that displays it has to know that this text runs from right to left. When a converter does not tell the next program about the direction, three things go wrong.

The first is reversed text. The letters are all there, but they are laid out left to right, so each word reads backwards.

The second is broken joins. Arabic letters change shape depending on their neighbours. A letter at the start of a word looks different from the same letter in the middle or at the end. If the converter draws each letter in its standalone shape, the word falls apart into separate characters. The text is right, but nobody can read it.

The third is flipped alignment. A paragraph that was right-aligned in a right-to-left frame arrives left-aligned, or punctuation jumps to the wrong end of the line. The full stop that should sit at the left end of an Arabic sentence ends up at the right.

What our output does

We built our own engine for .pub files, and right-to-left text is handled separately in each output format, because each format describes direction in its own way.

In a Word file, paragraphs that are mostly Arabic or Hebrew are set to right-to-left, and every run of Arabic or Hebrew letters is marked as right-to-left text. A mostly English paragraph with one Arabic name in it stays left-to-right, and that one name is still marked so Word draws it correctly.

In an IDML file, the direction is set for each story. A story is the text in one frame, or in a chain of linked frames. A story that is mostly Arabic or Hebrew is set to run right to left.

In a PDF, Arabic letters are joined into their connected forms and the text runs right to left.

Fonts matter here too. Some older Publisher documents set Arabic or Hebrew text in a face that has no Arabic or Hebrew letters at all. On screen, Publisher covered for this. A converter that uses the named face as it is draws empty boxes. In the PDF, when the original face lacks the letters your text needs, the converter uses a stand-in face that has them, so you see words instead of boxes. Word and IDML files keep your original font names, so if you have the original fonts installed, Word or InDesign uses them.

One gap, stated plainly: if your Publisher file justified Arabic lines by stretching the joins between letters (kashida), the Word file does not reproduce that stretching. Set the justification again in Word if you need it.

Which format to choose

For Arabic and Hebrew files, the choice of format matters more than usual.

PDF is the right choice when the document is finished and you need to send it, print it or keep it. The text in it is real text, so you can search it and copy it.

Word is the right choice when you need to keep editing the words. Word supports right-to-left languages, and the file arrives with the direction already set.

IDML is a good choice if you work in Adobe InDesign. InDesign supports Arabic and Hebrew through its World-Ready Composer.

IDML is not a good choice if you plan to open it in Affinity. Affinity's own help centre says: "RTL text support and vertical text aren't currently available in Affinity." That was the case when we checked on 6 October 2026. Your text would arrive, but Affinity cannot lay it out right to left.

ODG is not a good choice either. Our ODG output for LibreOffice Draw does not set right-to-left direction, so pick PDF or Word instead. Our guide to choosing an output format compares all four.

How to check your file before you pay

  1. Open the home page and drop your .pub file on it.
  2. Look at the free preview. It shows the PDF output, page by page, with a watermark. It covers up to 100 pages and 25 MB per file, and you do not need an account.
  3. Read a few lines on each page. Check that the words read in the right order, that Arabic letters are joined, and that paragraphs sit against the correct margin.
  4. Look closely at lines that mix Arabic or Hebrew with English words or numbers. These are the hardest lines for any converter.
  5. If it looks right, buy access and download PDF or Word. Access is a one-time $49 for as many conversion jobs as you like, up to 20 files and 2 GB per job.

Microsoft removed Publisher from Microsoft 365 on 1 October 2026, so now is a good time to convert these files. More on the Word output: Publisher to Word that stays editable.

Preview your Arabic or Hebrew file free and read the first page.