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ODF and proprietary formats: a comparison

When we create or share a document – whether a simple text, complex spreadsheet or professional presentation – we make a choice that goes far beyond the file extension. This is because the format gives us, or takes away, control over the content. This post compares the Open Document Format (ODF) with proprietary formats such as DOCX, XLSX and PPTX. The comparison is not just about compatibility, but also about freedom, security, costs, transparency, and our long-term digital future. We have already discussed ODF, and we will continue to do so until its 10th anniversary as an ISO/IEC standard in May 2026, because it is the only open standard available to users. We hope that an increasing number of users will understand how important it is for them to use it to have complete and lasting control over the content they have created, i.e. for their digital freedom, rather than for those of us who support it. ODF is the native format of LibreOffice and other programmes that use the LibreOffice Technology platform. These programmes offer the same functionality, flexibility, security, robustness and interoperability as applications that promote proprietary formats, but without the lock-in strategy. Incidentally, even so-called open-source applications

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

LibreOffice 24.8.7 is available for download

Berlin, 8 May 2025 – LibreOffice 24.8.7, the seventh and last minor release of the LibreOffice 24.8 family of the free open source, volunteer-supported office suite for Windows (Intel, AMD and ARM), MacOS (Apple and Intel) and Linux, is available at www.libreoffice.org/download. LibreOffice is the only office suite that respects the privacy of the user, ensuring that the user is able to decide if and with whom to share the content they create. It even allows deleting user related info from documents. In addition, it has a feature set comparable to the leading product on the market. The biggest advantage over competing products is the LibreOffice Technology engine, the single software platform on which desktop, mobile and cloud versions of LibreOffice – including those from ecosystem companies – are based. Products based on LibreOffice Technology are available for desktop operating systems (Windows, macOS, Linux and ChromeOS), mobile platforms (Android and iOS) and the cloud. End users looking for manuals can download the LibreOffice 24.8 guides from the following link: books.libreoffice.org/. For enterprise-class deployments, TDF strongly recommends the LibreOffice Enterprise family of applications from ecosystem partners, with three or five year backporting of security patches, other dedicated value-added features and Service

Announcing LibreOffice 25.2.3

Latest maintenance release brings improved stability and fixes to the powerful free office suite Berlin, 30 April 2025 – The Document Foundation is pleased to announce the release of LibreOffice 25.2.3, the third maintenance release of the LibreOffice 25.2 family for Windows (Intel, AMD and ARM), MacOS (Apple Silicon and Intel) and Linux, which is now available for download at www.libreoffice.org/download [1]. This release includes dozens of bug fixes and compatibility enhancements that further improve the suite’s performance, reliability and interoperability. LibreOffice 25.2.3 is part of the LibreOffice 25.2 series, which provides a balance of cutting-edge features and production-grade stability. For users requiring a more thoroughly tested version for enterprise environments, the project recommends LibreOffice 24.8. LibreOffice 25.2.3 is based on the LibreOffice Technology Platform, which enables the development of desktop, mobile and cloud versions – including by companies in the ecosystem – that fully support the two available ISO standards for documents: the open ODF or Open Document Format (ODT, ODS and ODP) and the closed and proprietary Microsoft OOXML (DOCX, XLSX and PPTX). Products based on LibreOffice technology are available for all major desktop operating systems (Windows, macOS, Linux and ChromeOS), mobile platforms (Android and iOS) and the

TDF’s Annual Report 2024 – LibreOffice Conference

The LibreOffice Conference is the annual gathering of the community, our end-users, developers, and everyone interested in free office software. In 2024, it took place in Luxembourg (This is part of The Document Foundation’s Annual Report for 2024 – we’ll post the full version here soon.) This was our third in-person conference after the COVID pandemic, following on from the Milan conference in 2022 and Bucharest conference in 2023, but we also lived-streamed sessions so that participants could watch remotely (and ask questions in our chat channels too). The conference took place from 10 – 12 October 2024 in Belval, Esch-sur-Alzette, which is around a 20 minute train ride from Luxembourg City. As public transport is free in the whole country, attendees staying in the city didn’t need to buy tickets to attend the event in Belval. Conference Tracks and extra sessions Opening sessions were given by Eliane Domingos (chairperson of the Board of Directors at TDF), Serge Linkels (Managing Director of the Digital Learning Hub and 42 Luxembourg), and Stéphanie Obertin (Luxembourg’s Minister for Digitalisation and Minister for Research and Higher Education). Then there were presentations and talks were given across various “tracks”, or categories: LibreOffice Development; ODF and

LibreOffice in 2024 – TDF’s Annual Report

In 2024, LibreOffice celebrated its fourteenth birthday. Two new major versions of the suite introduced a variety of new features, while minor releases helped to improve stability as well (This is part of The Document Foundation’s Annual Report for 2024 – we’ll post the full version here soon.) LibreOffice 24.2 On January 31, LibreOffice 24.2 was officially released after six months of work. Developers at The Document Foundation, Collabora, allotropia, CIB, Red Hat, NISZ and other companies and organisations – along with volunteers – worked on many new features. For instance, there were many improvements to the tabbed “NotebookBar” user interface, while styles support was added for comments. A new search field was added to the Functions sidebar deck in Calc, while in terms of accessibility, several significant improvements to the handling of mouse positions and the presentation of dialogue boxes via the Accessibility APIs were made, allowing screen readers to present them correctly. And regarding security, the “Sace with Password” dialogue box now has a password strength meter, which uses zxcvbn-c to determine the password strength. TDF’s marketing and localisation community produced and translated a video (below) which demonstrated many of the new features in LibreOffice 24.2. This was

Press Releases

LibreOffice 25.8.5 has arrived

Berlin, 19 February 2026 – LibreOffice 25.8.5, the fifth update to the FOSS office suite [1] developed by volunteers for…

Open Document Format

Why ODF and not OOXML

Many interpreted the last article in this series as an attack on Microsoft for using the OOXML format against users'…