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What are these .odt files?

Article by Raphael Champeimont (Almacha).

Files with extensions like ".odt", ".ods" and ".odp" are files in the OpenDocument format. They are respectively OpenDocument texts, spreadsheets and presentations.

For the impatient, you can jump at the bottom of this page to read So how do I open OpenDocument files?.

Why not use the classical ".doc", ".xls" and ".ppt" formats ?

The DOC/XLS/PPT formats are old formats that have many problems. They were created by Microsoft which never published documentation on how these formats work. So developers of other office suites than Microsoft Office had to analyze documents to see how these formats work, in order to implement these them.

Even Microsoft knows these formats should be replaced. To replace these old formats, 2 solutions exist:

The OpenDocument format (ODF), which was approved by the ISO on November 30, 2006 as the new standard for documents.
The Office Open XML format, created by Microsoft, approved by the ISO despite the controversy, on April 2, 2008.

Which software uses these new formats?

OpenDocument is now the default format used by OpenOffice.org and KOffice, which are free software office suites.
Office Open XML is the default format in Microsoft Office since version 2007.

How do I know the format of a file?

Files can be recognized by their extension, here is a table:

Table showing the extensions used by the different formats.
Type of document	Old DOC/XLS/PPT formats	Office Open XML	OpenDocument
Text	.doc	.docx	.odt
Spreadsheet	.xls	.xlsx	.ods
Presentation	.ppt	.pptx	.odp

Which one is the best format?

I think OpenDocument should be used, because it was approved by the ISO and because it is a better format. You can read a complete explaination about this format war.

So how do I open OpenDocument files?

To read OpenDocument files, you can install OpenOffice.org which is an office suite which is free software (What is free software?, Why use it?) and that is available for download at no cost. OpenOffice.org lets you do the same things as Microsoft Office programs (Word, Excel, PowerPoint), so by installing it you might even discover that you don't need to buy Microsoft Office any more. Anyway, download OpenOffice.org here: http://www.openoffice.org/, and you will be able to read (and modify) OpenDocument files.

$Id: what-odf.cgi 186 2008-04-04 15:37:15Z almacha $

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