I have windows but thinking to change to linux. Is MS Word and Publisher compatible with linux?
No but there are Linux equivalents that work in similar fashions and they can read your saved files with no problems. You can do a web search about such things, starting with the LibreOffice and OpenOffice suites to get you started.
Many DeskTop Publishing (DTP) programs in Linux as well. Have fun! :)
No, but Open Office and LibreOffice are available. There are some of these open source programs that can read and write MS compatible file formats.