Support for LibreOffice .ODT files

Help & Support
1

G'day all.
When searching for 'Support for LibreOffice .ODT files', there are similar previous topics, but all are now quite old. (>1 yr)

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DO seems to think .odt files should be opened with M$ Office, as in RHS of screen shot above.
[Hey! I like the privacy blurring - first time I've used it!]

When I check file type associations, .odt is correctly shown as opening with LibreOffice, which IS installed. I haven't checked the other OpenOffice type of files.

I am NOT a power user, and the solution is probably very simple, but if someone could point me in the right direction to solve this it would be appreciated.

DO 13.19 registered user
Win11 on Intel NUC xxx

Thanks in advance,
Bondy

2

LibreOffice's formats don't have any viewers or libraries that we know of, and they're far too complex for us to write our own viewer (it would turn into a full-time job and we'd have no time for all the other things Opus needs to do).

It's really up to the LibreOffice developers to make a Preview Handler (which would work in both File Explorer and Opus), but they don't seem interested in providing one.

3

Libre office does allow command line use so maybe you can use a script to call this to convert or view file. Just an idea.

4

Pandoc can convert many text formats. I didn't manage to set it up in Preferences / Miscellaneous / External Tools, but maybe it can be included in Preferences / Viewer / Plugins, e.g. feeding html to Edge.

1 Like
5

G'day everyone. Thanks for your replies & suggestions.
Leo ... Ahhhhh OK. Basically that was all I needed at this stage. Ummm ... seeing that I don't like M$ products, could you perhaps change the message to show .odt et al is an Open Document format and NOT M$? :thinking:
Splash3313 ... could well be a possible solution, but scripting is above my pay grade! :wink:
Ixp ... Gasp! You mentioned another M$ product that I treat like the plague! :face_with_peeking_eye: Seriously, though, I'll have a look at Pandoc and see what it can do for me.

Basically viewing Open Doc formats cannot happen within Opus.

Thanks everyone for your input.
Bondy

Edit 2025-10-25 0825: Ummm ... how do I mark this thread as being solved?

6

Little we can do... Edge is part of the MetaPlugin.

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It's AFAIR the only browser that runs inside the viewer.

7

I just checked, the .odt files are previewed using MS Office. No extra configuration is required:

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G'day PolarGoose. Thanks for reply.
I guess that's why the original screenshot I posted was wanting M$ Office to preview my .odt file.

I'm sure this will help those with M$ Office on their system. BUT ...

Ummmm ... am I the only one seeing the irony of having to install M$ Office just to be able to show Libre Office .odt files in preview? :roll_eyes:

9

I the only one seeing the irony of having to install M$ Office just to be able to show Libre Office .odt files in preview?

Good point. However, technically, it is not a LibreOffice file but an OpenDocument file format.

the irony of having to install M$ Office just to be able to show Libre Office .odt files in preview?

MS is the only one to have created an OLE control that allows integration with DOpus.
Also, I think it is really hard to live without MS Office.

10

For what it's worth, I get a preview of .odt files with the WordPerfect X9 Document preview handler.

Don't know how far back WordPerfect support for previewing .odt files goes, but Wikipedia indicates support for importing .odt goes back to WordPerfect X4 (List of software that supports OpenDocument - Wikipedia).

Maybe you could find an older version of WordPerfect (or possibly another word processor that supports OpenDocument) for a low price just for the preview handler.

1 Like