---
id: odfdo
version: "3.24.4"
license: Apache-2.0
license_treatment: permissive
maintenance: active
---

# odfdo — Python library for OpenDocument Format

License: permissive · Maintenance: active · Downloads: 146.7K/mo

## What it is and what it does

odfdo is a Python library for programmatically working with OpenDocument Format files—the ISO/IEC 26300 standard used by LibreOffice and other office suites. It lets you create new ODF documents from scratch, load and modify existing ones, and manipulate their content including text, tables, styles, and metadata. The library saves documents as ODF 1.4 and can read documents from ODF 1.0 through 1.4.

The package is built on lxml for XML handling and comes with a command-line toolkit (odfdo-diff, odfdo-markdown, odfdo-replace, odfdo-csv, and others) for common tasks like converting documents to Markdown, finding and replacing text, importing/exporting CSV data, and managing styles. It's designed for developers who need to automate document generation or manipulation without requiring LibreOffice itself.

Use it for:

- Generate reports or invoices as .odt or .ods files programmatically from application data.
- Parse and extract text or table data from existing ODF documents for processing or migration.
- Batch convert ODF files to other formats (e.g., Markdown via odfdo-markdown) or between ODF versions.
- Create spreadsheets from CSV data or export spreadsheet tables to CSV for downstream processing.
- Automate document styling and metadata updates across multiple ODF files using the command-line utilities.

## Worth the install?

AI-flagged interpretation of the facts above — verify before relying.

odfdo is a Python library for creating, parsing, and editing OpenDocument Format (ODF) files including text documents (.odt), spreadsheets (.ods), presentations (.odp), and drawings (.odg).

Yes. odfdo is actively maintained, has minimal dependencies, supports current Python versions, carries no known vulnerabilities, and is licensed permissively. Install it if you need to work with ODF files programmatically—it's the primary Python library for this task and comes with both a clean API and practical command-line tools.

## Install

pip install odfdo
uv add odfdo
poetry add odfdo

## Installing odfdo

Before you install: Low friction installation with only two runtime dependencies (lxml and typing-extensions). Actively maintained with a release on 2026-08-14 and recent commits. Tested across Python 3.10 through 3.14.

License in practice: Licensed under Apache License 2.0 (permissive), allowing commercial and private use with minimal restrictions.

Quickstart:

pip install odfdo

from odfdo import Document, Paragraph

doc = Document('text')
doc.body.append(Paragraph("Hello world!"))
doc.save("hello.odt")

Requires Python 3.10 or later; lxml must be installed (automatically handled by pip).

Verify before relying:

- Performance characteristics when working with large ODF files or complex document structures.
- Completeness of ODF 1.4 feature support relative to the full specification.

## Package facts

- License: Apache-2.0 (permissive)
- Python support: supports_current
- Install friction: low
- Maintenance: active
- Downloads: 146.7K/month (top 15,000 on PyPI)
- Known vulnerabilities: none known

## Tags

odf document creation python, openoffice file manipulation, odt ods odp library, create edit odf files, openDocument format python, spreadsheet text document generation, odf parsing and editing, document-generation, office-formats

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