How To Open .odt file

Open Office

First of all what is .odt file?

.odt is a file file extension for word processing which belongs to Open Document Format for Office Applications (a.k.a  ODF).

OpenDocument is an open standard which was used by Sun in Open Office suite.

Open Office is Sun Microsystem’s Application similar to Microsoft Office but free.

Now coming back to the original question on how to open .odt file. To open .odt file you will need Open office which you can download from Open Office’s website or from the following link

Download Open Office

A word of caution, Open Office is a massive application. The installation file itself is 144 MB. After installing it will occupy massive resources. So if you are worried about space and performance issues then better don’t install it.

.odt to.doc converter

There are plenty of free, free online, and licensed software which will allow you to convert .odt file format to Microsoft Word document .doc format.

Try this  free .odt to .doc online converter. It works very well. I haven’t tried it for large document though.

Sun ODF Plugin for Microsoft Office

This is another solution. Install Sun ODF Plugin for Office and when you double click on .odt file it will be automatically opened with Microsoft Word application.

However as you might be already knowing Sun was bought by Oracle and as rest of greedy and money hungry monsters, Oracle discontinued the Sun ODF Plugin 3.1 for Microsoft Office and it is no longer available for free on the Sun (read Oracle) website. The link is discontinued and by search you can’t find it on Oracle’s website. Sic Oracle. Shame on you. Not only that, Oracle has changed the name as well and it is now called Oracle ODF Plugin for Microsoft Office.

There is a good news though. Sun ODF Plugin For Microsoft Office 3.1 is available to download for free on Softpedia’s website. You can download it from the following link directly:

Download Sun ODF Plugin For Microsoft Office 3.1

Even this plugin is heavy, it took me almost 5 minutes to download and install. while installing this plugin my laptop virtually came to grinding halt. This plugin will work on Microsoft XP, Vista and with Microsoft Office 2003. I haven’t tested it for Microsoft Office 2007 so don’t know if it will work or not.

After installation when you double click on .odt file it will open in Microsoft Word. And after conversion you will see Oracle’s product registration page pops up in browser (sic). Ignore it.

Once .odt to .doc conversion is finished you will see the plugin icon in system status bar. It remains there even when you close the converted document. So you will have to close this plugin or else it will slow down your computer system.

Comments

17 Responses to “ How To Open .odt file ”
  1. Cheryl

    Dear Mr Ajay Singh
    Thank you for your assistance – have just converted a very simple one page .odt file to Word – hope that this helps somebody else.
    Cheryl

  2. myles samuel iezzi

    Hey man – many thanks! I used the converter and got the doc without bothering the client. Appreciate the tip.

    • Ajay

      Never ask, just Google.

      What if you had told client that you can’t open a file, he would have fired you ;)

      Glad that post helped you.

  3. TeeC

    Both Word 2007(SP2) and Word 2010 support .odt files. However they may not always be able to open them fully due to some incompatibility issues.

  4. Venkatesh

    The following add-on can be installed with MS office 2003.
    http://odf-converter.sourceforge.net/

    After installing go to ‘file’ menu->’open odf’

    that’s it.

  5. Lori

    the converter link rocks. you saved me.

    • Ajay

      Where is my beer?

  6. Venkatesh

    Great. Thanks for your reply Lori.

  7. Saroz

    Thanks the converter helped me a lot..

  8. Burnsit

    That converter was awesome! Worked in seconds. Thanks

  9. sadegh

    really great
    tnx a lot
    im amazing after convert

  10. Jahir

    Thanks very much. I convert my files online it is very useful
    thing and help many.

  11. Antony

    When I received a .odt file I thought it is some kind of junk or virus file. But the email was from a reliable source so I had to trust it and then searched for how to open .odt file. I wish it was just matter of double clicking and opening it.

    If every vendor start to have it’s own file extension then it will make our lives miserable.

    Why don’t they work together and creat an universal file format which can be opened by common word editors?

  12. CHANDRAKANT RATHOD

    Dear Sir,
    Thanks a lot to help in of convert my .odt file.

  13. Shrinivas

    it is very useful
    thing

  14. João Ziliotto

    Mr. Ajay

    Loook – OpenOffice.org file search:

    http://www.danielnaber.de/loook/

    20120926.

    JOÃO Z.

  15. Neelima Sharma

    thanks

    it work very well.

Leave a Reply to Venkatesh