Why is the Open Document Format (ODF) important?

Consider the history of control over user files, whether for organisations or individuals

Think about all the documents you have created in your lifetime: School assignments. Work presentations and reports. Household budgets. Letters. Perhaps even a personal diary or your CV.

Now imagine this: a few years go by, and when you try to open one of those files, it doesn’t work. The software has disappeared. Or it has been updated and no longer supports that format. Or you have to pay to unlock it.

It’s not just frustrating. It’s a real problem. That’s why the Open Document Format (ODF) was created: it’s a file format that allows computers to save documents such as letters, spreadsheets and presentations. You can recognise these files by their extensions: .odt for text files, .ods for spreadsheets and .odp for presentations.

What makes ODF special is that it is an open, transparent format that doesn’t hide anything from users. This means that anyone can use it freely; no company owns or controls it; and it is designed to work with different software, even years later. In short, it gives you control over your documents.

Let’s look at some everyday situations in which ODF can be useful:

Long-term access: you write your memoirs or your family history. Ten years later, you want to read or share them. With ODF, you don’t have to worry about the software becoming unavailable or obsolete.

Barrier-free education: A teacher asks students to submit their assignments digitally. With ODF, there is no need to purchase expensive software, as you can use a free tool such as LibreOffice instead.

Job search and consulting: create your CV in an open format so that anyone, regardless of their operating system (Windows, macOS or Linux) or application, can open it without encountering any formatting errors. You don’t even have to buy the software.

Sharing files with other users: you can send a document to a colleague or family member and they can open it without any problems, regardless of the programme they use. This is the advantage of a format that does not “belong” to a single company.

Public services: official documents in an open format can be accessed by everyone forever without them having to purchase or update software.

Unfortunately, most people forego all this because they use formats such as .docx (Word) or .xlsx (Excel). These are proprietary formats exclusively owned by Microsoft and can change at any time depending on their business strategies. Microsoft may require a subscription fee for a specific version, as older files may not be compatible with newer ones.

Proprietary formats can also cause problems when documents are opened with a different version of the same application, as the text and images may move and the document may look different. Sometimes, files do not open because the format is not recognised. This is not only annoying, but also risky if the file is important.

This is known as ‘lock-in’, a strategy that prevents users from choosing the software they prefer because migrating to a different format could result in the loss of all their content.

ODF, on the other hand, means freedom of choice, no restrictions, reduced costs, privacy, openness to the future and trust in technology. You don’t need to be a technology expert to use it; you just need to understand why it was created and why it has continued to grow for 20 years. Using ODF is like saving your documents in your own safe: it won’t suddenly disappear or require you to pay a monthly fee.

ODF also means security and transparency. ODF files are ZIP containers that use simple XML syntax, which any user can understand. This makes security checks much easier, allowing for automation and integration with companies’ CMS/ERP systems.

The digital agenda has always emphasised open standards, interoperability, and data portability. ODF fits perfectly into this landscape, not only replacing .docx or .xlsx, but also rejecting software that treats user data as a product.

ODF gives users full control over their documents. This is not just a technical detail; it ensures that documents belong to their creators, not the software used to process them. ODF enables us to assert ownership of our documents.