Convert OpenDocument Text to Plain Text
Free online converter for OpenDocument Text files. Unformatted UTF-8 text. Nothing to install, no watermark, and every file is deleted automatically.
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Upload a OpenDocument Text file to convert it to Plain Text. Up to 3 files at once, 100 MB each.
Free · up to 3 files · 100 MB each · files deleted automatically after 1 hour.
About ODT and TXT
OpenDocument Text .odt
The OpenDocument text format — an ISO-standardised, vendor-neutral alternative to DOCX, and the native format of LibreOffice.
Good for
- An open standard, not tied to one vendor
- Native to LibreOffice and OpenOffice
- Preferred or mandated by many public bodies
Trade-offs
- Word opens it but does not always round-trip it cleanly
- Less common in commercial workflows
application/vnd.oasis.opendocument.text
Plain Text .txt
Just characters. No fonts, no sizes, no layout — which is exactly why it will still open, unchanged, in fifty years.
Good for
- Universally readable, now and indefinitely
- Tiny, and works with every text tool ever written
- Nothing hidden — what you see is the whole file
Trade-offs
- No formatting, images or structure whatsoever
- Character encoding must be right or accents break
- Line endings differ between Windows and everything else
text/plain
ODT and TXT side by side
| ODT | TXT | |
|---|---|---|
| Compression | Zipped XML | None |
| Animation | No | No |
| Typically used for | LibreOffice documents, public-sector exchange | Notes, logs, source data, long-term archives |
What changes when you convert ODT to TXT
Rendered by LibreOffice
The conversion runs through headless LibreOffice — the same engine behind the desktop suite, not a lookalike parser. It handles ordinary documents faithfully. Where it can drift is on the elaborate: a document leaning on fonts the server does not have will have them substituted, and the substitute rarely occupies exactly the same width, so line and page breaks can move. Heavily designed layouts are worth checking against the original.
Comments and tracked changes
Editorial metadata is the first thing to go in a format conversion: comments, tracked changes and revision history rarely have an equivalent in TXT and are generally dropped or flattened into the text. Treat the output as a clean copy of the current state of the document. If the review history matters, keep the ODT alongside it.
Only the words survive
TXT stores characters and nothing else, so fonts, sizes, colours, images, tables and page layout are all dropped. What you get back is the text itself — which is the point when you want the content free of the formatting around it.
Other OpenDocument Text conversions
Other ways to get Plain Text
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