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I'm using Office for Mac 2008, version 12.3.5. I've received a .odt (Open Office) file on an email but cannot open it. I did get a message that the file may be corrupt or contain unreadable elements. Is there anything I can download to read it assuming that it just hasn't been recognised or should Word read it & therefore it must be corrupt?
Thanks
Janet
A family of Microsoft word processing software products for creating web, email, and print documents.
Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.
Answer accepted by question author
Word Online defaults to docx format, not odt. Odt is an optional save format in that version. Here is Microsoft's page on which features are supported: Differences between the OpenDocument Text (.odt) format and the Word (.docx) format used by Word Online
I don't agree with your advice that the ODT format should not be used any more. ODT is a format that is well supported by Open Office and Libre Office and works very well in my experience. It is unfortunate that Microsoft chooses not to support it, but that isn't a reason not to use it.
I cannot agree to this comment.
ODF is a well-documented, ISO certified, open format. OOXML is *not*. For example OOXML allows the embedding of proprietary binaries (which is of course heavily used by MS products).
There have been many debates about how OOXML could have become an ISO standard at all...
No. But Open Office/NeoOffice/LibreOffice can export to Word, Excel, Format to .doc and .docx and .xls, .xlsx Format.
Microsoft Word can not open OpenOffice .odt files. This is a file format that should not be used any more.
.odt is the old open standard file format that was used before the current Office Open XML standard was implemented. Microsoft began adopting the standard in 2003, but in Office 2007 and Office 2008 adopted the Office Open XML file format as the default format.
Ironically, most forks of OpenOffice do not support the current Office Open XML standard format. They cling to the decades old standard and refuse to abandon it. However, there is one fork of OpenOffice that does support the current standard. It is called **LibreOffice**. LibreOffice is the only fork of OpenOffice that should be used. Have the person who sent that ancient file to you update to the current version of LibreOffice so they can make files in standard format. In LibreOffice preferences there is a setting that tells LibreOffice to use the Office Open XML file format as the default. This setting should be enabled.
Once your correspondent joins the 21st century and gets rid of their ancient software, he or she will be able to share files with the **rest of the world**. Wikipedia misleadingly labels the Office Open XML format a "Microsoft format." The format is an international standard proposed by Microsoft and then adopted by a standards body representing many interests.