ODT Text Extractor

What this tool does

This tool extracts the text from an ODT document, the format that LibreOffice and OpenOffice save in. Upload your .odt file and it pulls out the words as plain text you can read or copy, entirely in your browser with nothing uploaded.

How to use it

1. Select your ODT file.
2. Press Extract.
3. Read or copy the text that appears. Reset clears it for another file.

How it works

Like several modern document formats, an ODT file is really a ZIP archive in disguise. Tucked inside it is a single file, content.xml, that holds the actual words of your document marked up in XML. The tool unzips the file, opens that one inner file, and reads out every paragraph as plain text. It all happens on your device, so the document never leaves your computer.

When this comes in handy

ODT is the standard of the open-source office world, so you tend to meet it when someone using LibreOffice or OpenOffice sends you a file. If you do not have that software installed, an .odt can be momentarily awkward to open, and this tool gets you straight to the contents without it. It is the quick way to read what a document says, lift the text into an email or another program, or search through the wording, when all you need is the words rather than the full document.

What you get back is the plain text, the paragraphs of the document, with the formatting, images, and styling left behind, since those are not what you came for here. For other formats, the PPTX and EPUB extractors handle presentations and ebooks, and to turn a Word file into Markdown there is Word to Markdown.

Questions people ask