ODT Format: Create and Convert LibreOffice Documents with Python

ODT (OpenDocument Text) is the ISO standard format for text documents in LibreOffice and Apache OpenOffice. It is a ZIP file containing XML, images, and metadata — fully open and free of proprietary software dependencies.

ODT vs DOCX: comparison

Internal ODT structure

# An ODT is a ZIP — inspect its contents
unzip -l document.odt
# Archive:  document.odt
#   Length    Name
# --------    ----
#     39      mimetype
#   2847      content.xml        <- Document text
#   1024      styles.xml         <- Styles and formatting
#    512      meta.xml           <- Metadata (author, date...)
#    256      settings.xml       <- LibreOffice settings
#    128      META-INF/manifest.xml

# Extract and view XML content
unzip -p document.odt content.xml | python3 -m xml.etree.ElementTree

Install odfpy

pip install odfpy

Create an ODT document with odfpy

from odf.opendocument import OpenDocumentText
from odf.style import Style, TextProperties, ParagraphProperties
from odf.text import P, H, Span

# Create document
doc = OpenDocumentText()

# Define styles
heading_style = Style(name='MyHeading', family='paragraph')
heading_style.addElement(TextProperties(fontsize='18pt', fontweight='bold'))
heading_style.addElement(ParagraphProperties(textalign='center'))
doc.styles.addElement(heading_style)

# Add heading
h = H(outlinelevel=1, stylename='Heading 1')
h.addText('My First ODT Document')
doc.text.addElement(h)

# Add paragraphs
p1 = P(stylename='Text Body')
p1.addText('This document was created with Python and odfpy.')
doc.text.addElement(p1)

p2 = P()
p2.addText('odfpy lets you create OpenDocument files without LibreOffice installed.')
doc.text.addElement(p2)

# Save
doc.save('my_document.odt')
print("ODT document created successfully")

Extract text from an ODT

from odf.opendocument import load
from odf import teletype

def extract_odt_text(odt_path):
    """Extract all text from an ODT document."""
    doc = load(odt_path)
    lines = []

    for element in doc.text.childNodes:
        if element.qname[1] in ('p', 'h'):
            line = teletype.extractText(element).strip()
            if line:
                lines.append(line)

    return '\n'.join(lines)

content = extract_odt_text('document.odt')
print(content[:500])

Read metadata

from odf.opendocument import load

doc = load('document.odt')
meta = doc.meta

print(f"Title:     {meta.title}")
print(f"Author:    {meta.creator}")
print(f"Created:   {meta.creation_date}")
print(f"Words:     {meta.word_count}")
print(f"Pages:     {meta.page_count}")

Convert ODT with LibreOffice CLI

LibreOffice can convert ODT to DOCX, PDF, HTML and other formats headlessly (no GUI):

# ODT → DOCX
libreoffice --headless --convert-to docx document.odt

# ODT → PDF
libreoffice --headless --convert-to pdf document.odt

# ODT → HTML
libreoffice --headless --convert-to html document.odt

# Specify output directory
libreoffice --headless --convert-to pdf --outdir ./pdfs/ document.odt

# Batch convert all ODTs in directory
libreoffice --headless --convert-to pdf *.odt

Batch conversion with Python

import subprocess
from pathlib import Path

def convert_odt_to_pdf(input_dir, output_dir):
    """Convert all ODT files in a folder to PDF using LibreOffice."""
    source = Path(input_dir)
    dest = Path(output_dir)
    dest.mkdir(parents=True, exist_ok=True)

    odt_files = list(source.glob('*.odt'))
    print(f"Found: {len(odt_files)} ODT files")

    for odt in sorted(odt_files):
        print(f"  Converting: {odt.name}")
        result = subprocess.run(
            ['libreoffice', '--headless', '--convert-to', 'pdf',
             '--outdir', str(dest), str(odt)],
            capture_output=True, text=True,
        )
        if result.returncode == 0:
            pdf_name = odt.stem + '.pdf'
            size = (dest / pdf_name).stat().st_size / 1024
            print(f"    OK → {pdf_name} ({size:.0f} KB)")
        else:
            print(f"    ERROR: {result.stderr[:200]}")

    print(f"\nDone: {len(odt_files)} files processed")

convert_odt_to_pdf('odt_documents/', 'generated_pdfs/')

Convert DOCX to ODT

import subprocess

# Most reliable: LibreOffice CLI
subprocess.run(['libreoffice', '--headless', '--convert-to', 'odt', 'document.docx'])

# Alternative: Pandoc (handles basic styles)
# pip install pypandoc
import pypandoc
pypandoc.convert_file('document.docx', 'odt', outputfile='document.odt')

When to use ODT

• Long-lived documents: ODT is more stable than DOCX across future software versions
• Government and public sector: required by many European administrations
• Avoiding Microsoft Office dependency: completely free and open ecosystem
• Interoperability: compatible with LibreOffice, OpenOffice, Google Docs, Zoho, and more

Related document conversions

Working with ODT in production usually means converting to or from these formats:

• ODT to PDF — final output for sharing and printing
• DOCX to ODT — migrate Word documents to OpenDocument
• ODT to DOCX — interoperate with Microsoft Office
• ODT to TXT — extract plain text for indexing/NLP
• PDF to ODT — recover editable form from a PDF
• Markdown to ODT — generate ODT from Markdown via pandoc