Convert ODT to RTF
ODT is the better format and RTF is the more accepted one. That tension is the whole reason for this conversion: a document written in LibreOffice sometimes has to reach someone whose software predates OpenDocument entirely, or a system that lists RTF among four formats it will take. The document survives the trip; a handful of OpenDocument-specific features do not.
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What it does
- Paragraph and character styles are flattened into direct formatting
- Lists, tables, hyperlinks and embedded images are carried across
- Output opens in Word, WordPad, TextEdit and most mail clients
How to use ODT to RTF
- 1
Upload the .odt
A LibreOffice or OpenOffice text document. Files written by Word as ODT convert equally well.
- 2
Styles are resolved into formatting
RTF has a weaker style model, so a heading arrives looking correct but is less tied to a reusable style than it was in the ODT.
- 3
Check anything ODT-specific
Tracked changes, comments and fields behave differently or vanish. If those matter, keep the ODT as the working copy.
How it works
The ODT is unzipped and its content XML is read, together with the styles that document refers to. Each paragraph, run, list and table is then written as RTF control words, with the styling resolved as it goes.
That resolution step is the substantive difference between the two formats. ODT keeps a strict separation between a named style and the text using it. RTF has a weaker version of the same idea, so much of the styling is written directly onto the text instead.
What that means in practice
The document looks the way it looked. What changes is how easy it is to restyle afterwards: in the ODT, editing one style changed every heading; in the RTF, headings are more likely to need changing individually.
For a document being sent to be read, this costs nothing. For one that is still being worked on, keep the ODT as the master and treat the RTF as an outgoing copy.
Features with no RTF equivalent
Tracked changes and comments are the ones people notice. RTF has some support for annotation but the fidelity across applications is poor enough that it should not be relied on, and a document sent for review should be sent as ODT or DOCX instead.
Fields that recompute, such as cross-references and some automatic numbering, may arrive as their current value rather than as a live field.
The size question
Expect the RTF to be several times larger if the document contains images, because a ZIP container is replaced by hexadecimal text. This is normal and is the price of a self-contained plain-text document.
When RTF is the right answer
Rarely, and specifically: when the destination is old software you do not control and cannot ask about.
RTF is plain text with markup, understood by essentially every word processor ever
written, including systems that predate both ODT and .docx. Legal and government
document workflows still use it for exactly that reason.
What it costs is size and nuance. RTF files are larger, since nothing is compressed, and elaborate layout — multi-column text, complex tables, precise positioning — simplifies on the way in.
If the other end can read .docx, send that instead. RTF is for the cases where
you genuinely do not know what will open the file.
Examples
A report for a recipient on very old software
The size jump is the images, which RTF stores as hexadecimal text. In exchange the file opens in essentially anything, including software that has never heard of OpenDocument.
A draft with tracked changes
The words come across; the editorial history does not. Send the ODT if the point of sending is the review, and the RTF only when the recipient needs the document rather than the discussion around it.
Frequently asked questions
Why not just send the ODT file?
Send it if the recipient can open it. Word has read OpenDocument for years, so most people can. RTF becomes the answer when you know they cannot, or when you do not know what they are running at all: an external counterparty, an upload form listing a short set of accepted formats, or a system old enough that OpenDocument postdates it.
What is lost in the conversion?
The style model, mostly. ODT keeps a named style attached to each paragraph, so changing the style changes everything using it; RTF resolves much of that into direct formatting, so the document looks right but restyles less cleanly. Tracked changes, comments and some field types also do not survive. Ordinary text, lists, tables, links and images do.
Why did the file get so much larger?
Embedded images. An ODT is a ZIP, so a photograph inside it stays compressed. RTF is plain text, so the same photograph is written out as hexadecimal, which roughly doubles its already-decompressed size. A document with a few images can grow several times over. The upside is that the RTF is self-contained and carries its images with it.