Publisher to TIFF Converter

Convert Publisher (.pub) to TIFF

TIFF is what print shops, archives and document-management systems ask for when they want a Publisher page as a fixed, high-resolution raster rather than a live layout. This converter reads the .pub with LibreOffice's Draw component (the libmspub importer from the Document Liberation Project), renders each page at 300 DPI, and writes the result as TIFF.

The single setting worth changing is Compression Type. It defaults to JPEG, which is lossy — and on a Publisher page, which is mostly flat colour, rules and text, JPEG is also the worst choice for file size. LZW is lossless and typically several times smaller on the same page.

How to Convert Publisher to TIFF

1. Upload Your Publisher File: Drag your .pub onto the page or click "+ Add Files". Each file is handled as its own job, so a queue of publications will not be merged.
2. Change Compression Type from JPEG to LZW: "Compression Type" opens on JPEG (lossy). Pick LZW for a lossless archival TIFF, or DEFLATE if your reader supports it and you want a slightly smaller file.
3. Set File Extension and Image Resolution: "File extension" chooses between .tif and .tiff (identical bytes, different name). "Image resolution" defaults to "Keep original", which preserves the full 300 DPI render — use a Preset or Width x Height only if you deliberately want a smaller raster.
4. Convert and Download: Click "Convert". A multi-page publication produces one TIFF per page, delivered as a ZIP. Files upload over an encrypted connection, are processed on our servers, and are deleted automatically after a few hours.

Compression Type: What Each Option Actually Does

Measured on a single A4 Publisher page rendered through this pipeline at 300 DPI (2481 × 3508 pixels, RGB), with the default "Very High" quality preset:

JPEG's DCT is tuned for photographs. A Publisher page is text, rules, logos and large areas of one colour — exactly the content LZW's dictionary coding handles well and DCT handles badly, which is why the lossless option comes out smaller here. If your publication is a full-bleed photo poster, that ordering can invert; check both.

CCITT Fax 4 and JP2K deserve a specific warning: both fail during the write, but a TIFF header has already been emitted by then, so you can be handed a small file that looks like a real TIFF, reports the correct pixel dimensions, and contains no image data at all. Never pick either for a colour Publisher page.

What the Pipeline Produces

The one-file-per-page behaviour matters if a downstream system expects a single multi-page TIFF. This converter does not produce one; if you need pages bundled together, convert to PDF instead, which keeps everything in one document.

Common Errors and How to Fix Them

• "The TIFF opens but the page is blank/black" — You almost certainly selected CCITT Fax 4 or JP2K. Re-run with LZW.
• "The file is enormous" — Compression Type is set to NONE. At 300 DPI an A4 page is 8.7 million pixels, so uncompressed RGB is around 26 MB per page. Switch to LZW.
• "My TIFF viewer refuses to open it" — ZSTD and WebP compression inside TIFF are recent additions and older viewers reject them. LZW is the safe interchange choice; PACKBITS is safer still for genuinely ancient software.
• "Text looks soft" — The render is 300 DPI, which is print-standard but not enormous. If you need finer text, keep "Image resolution" on "Keep original" (any downscale is applied after the render) and enlarge at the print stage rather than resampling here.
• "I got a ZIP, not a TIFF" — Your publication has more than one page. That is expected; each page is a separate TIFF inside the archive.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why is the default JPEG compression bigger than the lossless option?

Because a Publisher page is not a photograph. JPEG splits the image into 8×8 blocks and codes frequency coefficients, which is efficient on continuous-tone detail and inefficient on sharp black-on-white text and large flat fills — the block edges themselves become expensive to encode at a high quality setting. LZW compresses repeated pixel runs, which is exactly what a page of text and flat colour is made of. On the A4 page measured above, LZW came out at roughly a quarter the size of JPEG and lost nothing.

Should I use .tif or .tiff?

They are the same format; only the filename differs. .tif survives from the DOS three-character extension era and is still the more common spelling in print workflows and on Windows. Pick whichever the receiving system expects — the file bytes are byte-for-byte identical either way.

Does the TIFF keep transparency from the Publisher file?

No. The page is rendered to an opaque 8-bit RGB raster before the TIFF is written, so anything transparent in the layout is composited against the page background first. TIFF can technically carry an alpha channel, but this pipeline does not produce one — if you need real transparency, convert to PNG instead.

Can I get a single multi-page TIFF instead of one file per page?

Not from this converter. Each rendered page is written as its own TIFF and multi-page publications come back as a ZIP. Multi-page TIFF is supported by the format but is not what this pipeline emits. If the goal is one file containing every page, Publisher to PDF is the right target.

What DPI are the pages rendered at, and can I change it?

300 DPI, fixed. That is the standard print-quality figure and it makes an A4 page 2481 × 3508 pixels and a US Letter page 2550 × 3300. There is no DPI selector on this page; the "Image resolution" controls resize the finished raster rather than changing the render resolution, so downscaling loses detail that a lower-DPI render would simply never have created.

Why do CCITT Fax 4 and JP2K produce a broken file instead of an error?

CCITT Group 4 is a bilevel fax codec — it requires one bit per sample, so an 8-bit RGB page cannot be encoded and libtiff refuses. JP2K is registered as a TIFF compression tag but scanline writing for it is not implemented. In both cases the TIFF header (including the correct image width and height) is written before the encoder fails, leaving a few hundred bytes of valid-looking header with no image data behind it. Use LZW.

Is TIFF a better archival choice than PDF for a Publisher document?

For a page image, yes: uncompressed or LZW TIFF is a long-established preservation format with no dependency on font availability. For a document, PDF is usually better, because it keeps the text as text — searchable, selectable, and a fraction of the size. Many archives keep both: PDF as the access copy, LZW TIFF as the preservation master.

What happens to my file after the conversion finishes?

It is uploaded over an encrypted connection, processed on our servers, and deleted automatically after a few hours — never shared and never made public. No account is needed and nothing is watermarked. If you want to shrink an existing set of TIFFs afterwards, our TIFF compressor works on the finished files.