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 structure

unzip -l document.odt
# mimetype, content.xml, styles.xml, meta.xml, settings.xml, META-INF/manifest.xml
unzip -p document.odt content.xml | python3 -m xml.etree.ElementTree

Install odfpy

pip install odfpy

Create an ODT document

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

doc = OpenDocumentText()

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

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

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

Extract text from an ODT

from odf.opendocument import load
from odf import teletype

def extract_odt_text(path):
    doc = load(path)
    lines = []
    for elem in doc.text.childNodes:
        if elem.qname[1] in ('p', 'h'):
            line = teletype.extractText(elem).strip()
            if line:
                lines.append(line)
    return '\n'.join(lines)

print(extract_odt_text('document.odt')[: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"Date:   {meta.creation_date}")
print(f"Pages:  {meta.page_count}")

Convert with LibreOffice CLI

libreoffice --headless --convert-to docx document.odt
libreoffice --headless --convert-to pdf document.odt
libreoffice --headless --convert-to pdf --outdir ./pdfs/ document.odt
libreoffice --headless --convert-to pdf *.odt  # batch

Batch conversion with Python

import subprocess
from pathlib import Path

def convert_odt_to_pdf(input_dir, output_dir):
    source = Path(input_dir)
    dest = Path(output_dir)
    dest.mkdir(parents=True, exist_ok=True)

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

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

When to use ODT

• Long-lived documents: more stable than DOCX across software versions
• Government and public sector: required by many European administrations
• Avoiding Microsoft dependency: completely free and open ecosystem