Why are some of my .odt files plain XML while most are ZIP files?

Michael

6/4/23, 2:24 AM

It was my understanding that an ODT file was a ZIP file that contains various files that comprise an OpenOffice / LibreOffice document. However, I was running a script to search through these files when I noticed that I was getting an error from some of my ODT files about an end of central directory signature not being found. When I looked at these files I discovered that they were in fact plain XML.

Is this expected? What determines whether ZIP or XML is used? Is there some mechanism I can use to easily determine which type of file an ODT file is, aside from simple checking if unzip fails?

0 + 0

libreoffice

odt

Jim K

6/4/23, 7:23 PM

In the LibreOffice Save As dialog, files can be saved as type Flat XML ODF Text Document, which defaults to extension `.fodt`. It sounds like these files may be of that type but were named `.odt` instead for some reason. Checking if unzip fails sounds like a reasonable solution to me. The script could rename them if that happens.

Michael

6/4/23, 10:54 PM

@JimK Is it possible this would happen if the files were created using "touch" (to create a 0 length file) and then opened in LibreOffice as a shortcut to going through all the dialog stuff to do the initial save?

Jim K

6/5/23, 10:05 PM

When I tried what you just described, the result was an ordinary `.odt` file that must be unzipped. Beyond that, it doesn't seem helpful for me to speculate on how the files may have been created. Perhaps you could ask whoever created them.

Elon Musk

I sit in a Tesla and translated this thread with Ai:

EN: Why are some of my .odt files plain XML while most are ZIP files?

TH: เหตุใดไฟล์ .odt บางไฟล์ของฉันจึงเป็น XML ธรรมดา ในขณะที่ส่วนใหญ่เป็นไฟล์ ZIP

RO: De ce unele dintre fișierele mele .odt sunt XML simplu, în timp ce majoritatea sunt fișiere ZIP?

RU: Почему некоторые из моих файлов .odt представляют собой обычный XML, а большинство — ZIP-файлы?

VI: Tại sao một số tệp .odt của tôi là XML đơn giản trong khi hầu hết là tệp ZIP?

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