DataPublisher Desktop

The same DataPublisher, in its own window, with no Word running. Pick your data, pick a template, and your documents are merged on your computer.

Download for Windows or Linux

Built on Electron

DataPublisher Desktop is an Electron app. Electron is the same foundation as Visual Studio Code, Slack, Discord and Notion: the Chromium browser engine and Node.js, packaged as an ordinary desktop program. If you use any of those, you already run this kind of app every day.

For DataPublisher that means the interface you know from the Word task pane runs in its own window, and the merge engine runs on your computer next to it. It does what the task pane does without Word running: your data, your templates and your finished documents stay on your machine, and Word is only needed if you want to open or edit a result in it.

Why Electron? One codebase gives the same DataPublisher on Windows and Linux, with the same interface and the same results. The merge engine is the same one that backs the command-line tools, and it is tested to produce the same documents as our Windows engine.

Download

Version 0.1.1 · 64-bit · free to install, sign in with your DataPublisher account

Windows

Windows 10 or 11, 64-bit · installs for your user, no administrator needed · about 121 MB
Download the Windows installer

SHA-256

See SHA256SUMS.txt

Linux

AppImage for x86-64 desktops · tested on Ubuntu 26.04 · about 135 MB
Download the Linux AppImage

SHA-256

See SHA256SUMS.txt
These installers are not code-signed yet. We are working on getting a code-signing certificate, and the process is slow. Until it comes through, Windows will show "Windows protected your PC" and name the publisher as unknown. That is expected, and the steps below get past it. Download only from this page, and check the SHA-256 shown above against the file you received (see how to check).

Install

Windows

  1. Download the installer and double-click it.
  2. If you see Windows protected your PC, click More info, then Run anyway.
  3. Choose an install folder if you want one other than the default, and click Install. It installs for your user only, so it does not ask for administrator rights.
  4. Start DataPublisher from the Start menu or the desktop shortcut, and sign in.

Your data lives in %LOCALAPPDATA%\DataPublisher-electron, and finished documents are saved to Documents\DataPublisher. To remove the app, use Settings → Apps. Uninstalling leaves your data in place.

Linux

  1. FUSE. An AppImage needs the FUSE 2 library, which recent Ubuntu does not install by default. If it is missing, the AppImage stops with "error loading libfuse.so.2". Install it once: 
    sudo apt install libfuse2t64    # Ubuntu 24.04 and later
sudo apt install libfuse2       # Ubuntu 22.04 and older, Debian
    Other distributions call it fuse2 or fuse-libs. Or skip FUSE: run the AppImage with --appimage-extract-and-run.
  2. AppArmor, on Ubuntu 23.10 and later (and others that restrict unprivileged user namespaces). A one-time permission lets the app keep Chromium's security sandbox switched on. Download the AppArmor profile, then: 
    sudo cp datapublisher-appimage /etc/apparmor.d/datapublisher-appimage
sudo apparmor_parser -r /etc/apparmor.d/datapublisher-appimage
    Without it, DataPublisher refuses to start with the sandbox off, and says what to do. The profile only adds permission to create user namespaces for the program inside the AppImage.
  3. Make the AppImage runnable and start it: 
    chmod +x DataPublisher-*.AppImage
./DataPublisher-*.AppImage

Your data lives in ~/.local/share/DataPublisher, and finished documents are saved to the DataPublisher folder inside your Documents folder.

What it does

  • Imports CSV files and Microsoft Excel workbooks from OneDrive
  • Merges data into Word (.docx) and OpenDocument (.odt) templates, one document per record or all records in one
  • Runs the DataPublisher domain apps and the sample library
  • Makes PDFs
  • Sends email campaigns and DataRequests through your DataPublisher account
  • Works with a 30-day offline sign-in, so a flight or a dead connection does not stop a merge

What to know

  • Word is not required for merging. Finished documents open in whatever opens .docx on your computer.
  • PDFs are made with Microsoft Word when it is installed on Windows, or with LibreOffice (free). On Linux they use LibreOffice. The app tells you if neither is found.
  • Features that edit the document open inside Word (such as testing a table layout on the current page) belong to the Word add-in and are not in the desktop app.
  • This is an early release (version 0.1.1). Tell us what you find: support.

Check your download

A SHA-256 checksum is a fingerprint of the file. If the fingerprint of your download matches the one on this page, the file is the one we published and nothing changed on the way. The same values are in SHA256SUMS.txt.

Windows (PowerShell):

Get-FileHash .\DataPublisher-*-setup.exe -Algorithm SHA256

Linux:

sha256sum DataPublisher-*.AppImage

Prefer to work inside Word?

The Word add-in puts the same DataPublisher in a task pane next to your document.

Get the Word add-in