The ODT file (.odt, .fodt)

The basics

What is an ODT file?

Anatomy

What's inside an ODT file

Rename an .odt to .zip and you can open it like any archive. Our sample-minimal.odt has only the three entries LibreOffice needs to open it, written by hand. Here they are, part by part.

$ unzip -l sample-minimal.odt
  Length      Date    Time    Name
---------  ---------- -----   ----
       39  2026-10-27 12:00   mimetype
      447  2026-10-27 12:00   content.xml
      391  2026-10-27 12:00   META-INF/manifest.xml

Bytes 0-76: 50 4B 03 04 … "mimetype" "application/vnd.oasis.opendocument.text"

content.xml:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<office:document-content
    xmlns:office="urn:oasis:names:tc:opendocument:xmlns:office:1.0"
    xmlns:text="urn:oasis:names:tc:opendocument:xmlns:text:1.0"
    office:version="1.3">
  <office:body>
    <office:text>
      <text:h text:outline-level="1">Hello, world.</text:h>
      <text:p>Sample ODT from 99helpers.com/file-types/odt</text:p>
    </office:text>
  </office:body>
</office:document-content>

META-INF/manifest.xml (the two entries):
<manifest:file-entry manifest:full-path="/" manifest:version="1.3"
    manifest:media-type="application/vnd.oasis.opendocument.text"/>
<manifest:file-entry manifest:full-path="content.xml"
    manifest:media-type="text/xml"/>

1. 150 4B 03 04

   The ZIP signature

   Every ODT is a ZIP file, so it starts with PK. ODF only allows entries that are stored or compressed with Deflate, and doesn't use ZIP's own encryption.

2. 2mimetype

   The mimetype entry

   A file whose whole content is the document's MIME type, with no line break. The standard says it must be the first entry in the ZIP, uncompressed and without an extra field, so the type sits at a fixed place: the name at byte 30, the type at byte 38. That lets file and upload checks tell an ODT from any other ZIP by reading the first 80 bytes.

3. 3content.xml

   The content

   The text, tables, lists and images, in order, plus the automatic styles for direct formatting. It's the part that matters most.

4. 4<office:document-content …>

   The root element and namespaces

   Declares the ODF namespaces. The prefixes office:, text:, table:, draw: and style: come from here.

5. 5office:version="1.3"

   The ODF version

   Which version of the standard the file claims. LibreOffice 24.2 writes 1.3; Microsoft 365 writes 1.4.

6. 6<office:body> <office:text>

   The body

   office:text marks a word-processing document. A spreadsheet has office:spreadsheet here, a presentation office:presentation.

7. 7<text:h text:outline-level="1">

   A heading

   Headings are their own element with an outline level, unlike DOCX, where a heading is a paragraph with a heading style. Navigators and tables of contents use the level.

8. 8<text:p>

   A paragraph

   Ordinary paragraphs. Formatting inside a paragraph is a text:span with a style name.

9. 9META-INF/manifest.xml

   The manifest

   Lists every entry in the package with its media type. The entry for / repeats the document type. Encryption details go here too, per file.

10. 10(no styles.xml, meta.xml, settings.xml)

    What's missing

    A file saved by a word processor also has named styles, metadata, application settings, a thumbnail and pictures. When they're absent, the app uses its defaults.

Under the hood

The parts of a typical ODT

Versions

ODF versions and the ISO standard

Comparison

ODT vs DOCX vs DOC vs PDF

Troubleshooting

Compatibility problems and how to avoid them

How to

How to open, edit and convert an ODT file

Security

Security, privacy and password protection

Free downloads

Sample ODT files to download

Free sample OpenDocument Text files for testing converters, previews, parsers and uploads. They were written with odfpy and saved by LibreOffice 24.2, then checked with unzip -t, odfpy and a LibreOffice export to PDF. The password for the protected one is 99helpers.

What's inside sample-document.odt

A two-page A4 document with the features you'll meet in real ODT files. Browsers can't preview ODT, so there's no live preview; open it in LibreOffice, Word or Google Docs, or rename a copy to .zip to see the parts.

1. Document properties

   Title, subject, description, keywords, the fictional author Ada Example, fixed dates and a custom Source property, in meta.xml. LibreOffice shows them under File, Properties.

2. Named styles

   Title, Heading 1, Heading 2, Text Body, Caption, a custom Note style with a border and background, and character styles for bold, italic and code, all in styles.xml.

3. Headings

   text:h elements with outline levels 1 and 2, so they appear in the Navigator and would feed a table of contents.

4. Lists

   A bulleted list and a numbered list, each a text:list with its own list style.

5. A table

   A five-row table:table with a header row that repeats on each page, and number cells stored with office:value-type="float".

6. An image

   An original PNG bar chart in Pictures/, placed in a draw:frame with a caption below.

7. Header, footer and fields

   A header line and a footer with page number and page count fields that show "Page 1 of 2".

8. Link and Unicode

   A hyperlink to this page and a line of text in French, Japanese, Greek and Russian.

All sample ODT files

• Two-page sample document

  sample-document.odt · 39.3 KB (40,264 bytes)

  A realistic A4 document saved by LibreOffice: properties, named styles, headings, lists, a table, an image with a caption, a header, a footer with page fields and a link.

  • Testing converters and previews
  • Checking parsers against a typical ODT
  Download

• Minimal ODT, three entries

  sample-minimal.odt · 781 bytes

  Only mimetype, content.xml and META-INF/manifest.xml, written by hand: no styles, metadata or settings. It's the file shown in the anatomy above.

  • Parser tests: don't assume optional parts exist
  • Learning the package structure
  Download

• Tracked changes and comments

  sample-tracked-changes.odt · 16.9 KB (17,288 bytes)

  Meeting notes with a deletion ("Tuesday"), two insertions and two comments by the fictional Ada Example and Bram Voorbeeld, one comment anchored to a range of text.

  • Testing how tools handle revisions and comments
  • Privacy and metadata-cleaning checks
  Download

• Password-protected ODT

  sample-password.odt · 25.1 KB (25,708 bytes)

  The sample document saved with a password: 99helpers. Every part is encrypted with AES-256 and listed in the manifest with its encryption data; there's no thumbnail.

  • Password prompts and wrong-password errors
  • Upload filters and indexers that meet encrypted documents
  Download

• Flat XML ODT (.fodt)

  sample-flat-xml.fodt · 67.3 KB (68,960 bytes)

  The sample document as one XML file with an office:document root and the PNG embedded as Base64. LibreOffice also writes an empty office:scripts element; there are no macros.

  • Seeing the whole format in one readable file
  • Testing XML-based tools and diffs
  DownloadOpen

Ways to test with them

• File type detection: all four .odt files start with PK and have mimetype at byte 30. A detector that reports application/zip isn't looking at it.
• Text extraction: in sample-tracked-changes.odt, decide what your extractor should output: the deleted "Tuesday", the inserted "Thursday" or both. The deleted text sits in text:tracked-changes at the top of the body, not in the paragraph.
• Conversion fidelity: convert sample-document.odt to DOCX or PDF and check the table header, the image, the Note style and the page fields.
• Defensive parsing: sample-minimal.odt has no styles.xml or meta.xml. Code that assumes they exist will fail on it.
• Encryption: open sample-password.odt with 99helpers, and check what your tool does without it: the ZIP opens, but content.xml is unreadable.

Free to use for testing, teaching and demos, commercially or not, with no attribution needed. A link back to this page is always appreciated.

Questions

ODT files, frequently asked