ODG: your .pub layout, editable in LibreOffice Draw
You can now convert a .pub file to ODG. That is the drawing format LibreOffice Draw opens. Pick it from the format list the same way you pick PDF, Word or IDML.
Why we added it
Until today, if you wanted to keep editing your layout after converting, you needed InDesign or Affinity Publisher, and you needed to pick IDML. Those are paid programs. Word takes your text and your pictures, but Word is a word processor, so a poster or a newsletter does not stay in one piece there.
LibreOffice Draw is free and it edits page layouts. ODG is the format it uses. So adding it means you can open your converted file, move a frame, change a heading, and save it, without buying a design program first.
That is the whole reason. More ways to edit the file, and one of them costs nothing.
How the ODG we write is made
This part is worth explaining, because there is already a way to get a .pub file into LibreOffice.
LibreOffice can open a .pub file by itself. When it does, it reads the Publisher file into the running program and shows you the result. Save it from there and an ODG comes out the other end.
We do it the other way round. We read your .pub file and write the ODG file directly. Nothing gets opened in a program along the way. The ODG is the thing we build, not a by-product of displaying your document somewhere.
That has one effect you can see for yourself. The layout we work out from your .pub file is the same layout we use for the PDF, for the Word file and for the IDML. Convert the same .pub four times, into four formats, and all four agree with each other. The ODG is not a separate reading of your document. It is the same reading, written into a different container.
What to expect
Open the .odg in LibreOffice Draw. Your pages, text frames, pictures and shapes arrive as objects you can click and move.
Some things are still rough, and we would rather say so than let you find out. Rotated artwork, a few table borders and some WordArt headings do not always land where Publisher puts them. We ship these fixes as we finish them, and you can convert the same file again at no extra cost.
Try it
Upload your file and run a free preview first. The preview shows the PDF render, so it tells you whether we read your document correctly, page by page, before you decide. Downloads are a one-time $49 purchase, and ODG is included like every other format.