Publisher to Video Converter

Convert Publisher (.pub) to Video

This page turns a Microsoft Publisher document into a video slideshow: every page in the publication becomes one frame, held on screen for a duration you choose. It is the generic-target version of the conversion — instead of being locked to one container, you pick the output format yourself from a list of 32, from MP4 and WebM through to AVCHD, MXF and SWF.

The pipeline reads the .pub with LibreOffice's Draw component (the libmspub importer from the Document Liberation Project), renders each page at 300 DPI, and encodes those page images as a silent video.

How to Convert Publisher to Video

1. Upload Your Publisher File: Drag your .pub onto the page or click "+ Add Files". Every page becomes one frame, so a six-page brochure produces six frames.
2. Pick a Video File Extension — Nothing Is Preselected: This is the step people skip. The "Video File Extension" list has no default on this page, so submitting without choosing gives you whatever sits first in the list rather than the format you had in mind. Click MP4 (or WebM, MOV, MKV…) explicitly.
3. Set Image Duration and Video Resolution: Image Duration opens at 5 seconds per page and runs from a single frame (1/60s) to 10 seconds. "Video resolution" opens on "Keep original", which produces a tall page-shaped frame — pick a Fixed Resolution such as 1920 x 1080 if the video needs a conventional aspect.
4. Convert and Download: Click "Convert". Files upload over an encrypted connection, are processed on our servers, and are deleted automatically after a few hours. No sign-up, no watermark.

Which Output Format Should You Choose?

The Video Codec dropdown stays empty until you have chosen an extension — the codec list is derived from the container you pick. These are the choices worth considering for a page slideshow:

MP4 is the right choice unless something specific pushes you elsewhere. Every option on this page produces the same 1 fps silent slideshow underneath; the container and codec only change what will open it.

What the Encoder Actually Does

At 300 DPI an A4 page renders to 2481 x 3508 pixels, even-rounded to 2480 x 3508 before encoding; US Letter is 2550 x 3300. Pages longer than about 13.6 inches cross the 4096-pixel ceiling and are scaled down to fit it, so Legal and Tabloid publications lose some render detail at "Keep original".

The target-file-size and fixed-bitrate modes you may have seen on video-to-video pages are hidden here. A still image has no source bitrate, so there is nothing for those modes to work from.

Format-Specific Traps

Some entries in the extension list behave in ways the name does not advertise. If you pick one of these, know what you are getting:

• MPEG-1 codec (offered under MPEG, MPG and MTS) — fails on this source. MPEG-1 accepts only a fixed set of broadcast frame rates, and this pipeline encodes stills at 1 fps, which is not one of them, so the encoder refuses to open. Pick MPEG-2 or H.264 instead.
• MPEG-4, Xvid and DivX — capped at 2048 pixels per side by the encoder settings, so a full-resolution page is scaled down to roughly 1448 x 2048 before encoding. They also ignore Quality Preset on a still source; use Constraint Quality with a Max bitrate.
• 3GP and 3G2 — the frame size is snapped to the nearest legal H.263 size (128×96, 176×144, 352×288, 704×576 or 1408×1152). That overrides your resolution choice and does not preserve aspect ratio, which mangles a portrait page.
• AVCHD, XVID and DIVX extensions — these produce a file whose bytes are a transport stream or an AVI, carrying that literal extension. Renaming to .mts or .avi is often needed before a player will touch them.
• MXF — encoded all-intra with a GOP of 1, so files are much larger than an equivalent MP4.
• RM / RMVB — the only control that really moves the output is resolution; the quality modes are stripped for the RealVideo encoders.

Frequently Asked Questions

Which format does this page default to if I just hit Convert?

None — and that is the trap. Unlike the single-target pages, the "Video File Extension" list on a generic page carries no preselected value, so submitting untouched gives you whatever happens to sit first in the list rather than MP4. Always click the format you want before converting.

How long will the video be?

Page count multiplied by Image Duration. A twelve-page catalogue at the default 5 seconds per page produces a one-minute video. There is no separate total-runtime field, so divide your target length by the number of pages and pick the closest Image Duration value.

Why does the video have no sound?

There is no audio anywhere in the pipeline. A Publisher document has no sound track, so the audio-codec control is hidden on every image-to-video page and the file is written with a single video stream and no audio stream at all. That is genuinely useful for the web: browsers block autoplay for videos with sound, but a file with no audio stream satisfies the muted-autoplay policy.

Why is the frame rate only 1 fps?

Because every frame is a static page. Storing one picture per page instead of twenty-five identical copies of it makes the file dramatically smaller with no visible difference, and B-frames are disabled for the same reason. Browsers and media players handle it fine; some non-linear editors dislike unusual frame rates on import, in which case re-encode the finished file at a conventional rate.

I uploaded several Publisher files — will I get one video or several?

Set "Merge strategy" to Video per image and each .pub is converted to its own video, which is what you almost always want for separate publications. The default, "Merge images", bundles the queue into a single job — leave it there only if you genuinely intend one combined output.

Why is my video a tall portrait sliver?

Because "Video resolution" is on "Keep original" and a printed page is portrait. Choose a Fixed Resolution such as 1920 x 1080 and the page is fitted inside the frame, with the surrounding space filled by the Background Color (white by default — change it in the Background Color dropdown if white bars look wrong).

Can I add music or narration to the slideshow?

Not here. This conversion produces video only, with no audio stream at all. Add a soundtrack afterwards in a video editor, which also lets you time the audio to the page changes rather than accepting a uniform duration per page.

What happens to my Publisher file after the conversion?

It is uploaded over an encrypted connection, converted on our servers, and deleted automatically after a few hours — never shared, never made public, and no account is required. Nothing is watermarked. If a document would serve better than a video, Publisher to PDF keeps every page in one file with the text still selectable.