Using Publisher Documents on a Mac
February 18, 2009
by Walter S. Mossberg
There’s no other major item most of us own that is as confusing, unpredictable and unreliable as our personal computers. Everybody has questions about them, and we aim to help.
Here are a few questions about computers I’ve received recently from people like you, and my answers. I have edited and restated the questions a bit, for readability.
I need to use Microsoft Publisher documents on my MacBook. Unfortunately, I can’t figure out how to do this. I have tried to run it on Microsoft Word, but this didn’t work.
As far as I know, neither Microsoft nor Apple nor anyone else makes a native Mac program that can open or edit Microsoft Publisher documents, which use their own special format, rather than any common cross-platform format.
However, there may be some workarounds. If you own or can borrow a PC and a copy of Microsoft Publisher, you could export the documents as PDF files from within Publisher, and then open them on a Mac. Or you could run Publisher itself on your MacBook, since Macs can run Windows and Windows programs, if you buy and install Windows.
Your Mossberg Solution column recently recommended an add-on for Firefox called Surf Canyon that improves searches. But I am wondering if it’s safe to use, since it is labeled “beta.”
I have been using Surf Canyon in Firefox for months, without any problems. (It also works in Internet Explorer.) You are correct that it’s a beta, but that label doesn’t usually mean a product is unsafe, just that it’s incomplete or unpolished. In the old days, a “beta” product was usually pretty flaky and available only to a very small number of testers until the kinks were worked out. Now, especially with Web-related products, a “beta” is often just another word for version 1.0 of a product. It is open to all, and may not work perfectly, but is usually not dangerous to your computer.
Is there a legal way to use a smartphone as a modem for a laptop?
Yes, indeed. It depends on your carrier, and your plan, and your phone, but it can be done, perfectly legally, either using a cable or Bluetooth wireless to connect the phone to the laptop. Note that, depending on your plan, the carrier may well charge you an added monthly fee for this privilege. Also, the speed of your connection may be a bit slower than the speed you’d get from a cellular data card you insert directly into the laptop or from one that’s built in.
- You can find Mossberg’s Mailbox, and my other columns, online free of charge at the new All Things Digital Web site, http://walt.allthingsd.com.
Comments
re the publisher import issue.. couple of things.. within MS Publisher select all and copy to MS Word on Windows platform, then save Word file, email it to the Mac, open with MS Word on Mac. Or, use open office, copy into there on windows, then email to mac and use open office to open the doc on the mac.
Then, well, re edit to your liking. Any way you slice this you will have to more work. Good luck
Posted by steve funk at February 18th, 2009 at 4:05 pmCoincidentally, in recognition of one year since we launched our application, today we removed the “Beta” label from Surf Canyon.
Posted by Mark Cramer at February 19th, 2009 at 11:41 amIf the Mac user needs to be able to edit the Publisher document, here’s the workaround that sometimes works for me. First, instead of saving the Publisher document as a PDF, save the document on the PC as a Postscript file. Then, on the Mac, open up the Postscript file using the open-source Scribus (www.scribus.net), and use Scribus do to the editing. If that doesn’t work well for the user, it’s also possible to open up PDF files using the open source Inkscape (www.inkscape.org), but each page of the document has to be opened up as a separate Inkscape document. The user can then save the Inkscape documents as SVG files, and import them into Scribus for editing. This method requires more effort, but may achieve better results.
Posted by Royston Lodge at February 20th, 2009 at 1:35 pmAnother option: Depending on the skill level of the Mac user, if they have an Intel-based Mac they might be able to get Publisher running on their Mac without having to install a full version of Windows by using WINE instead (http://wiki.winehq.org/MacOSX). This option is definitely not for the casual user.
Posted by Royston Lodge at February 20th, 2009 at 1:52 pmThere is also a free online service that will convert almost any file, including .pub files, to pdf. It is at
Posted by Steven Taylor at February 21st, 2009 at 9:51 amhttps://www.pdfonline.com/convert_pdf.asp and works quite nicely.
Found a plug-in for Adobe InDesign which will convert those pesky MS Publisher files to Mac InDesign CS2 and CS3. That’s the good news. The bad news: They are asking $200 for it! If you’re desperate and / or loaded, check it out:
Posted by Dave Doolittle at February 25th, 2009 at 8:25 amhttp://www.markzware.com/pub2id/overview.php
Walt – you may wish to review this plug-in. It’s the only such thing I’ve ever seen.