Excel to ODS Converter
Convert Excel workbooks to OpenDocument Spreadsheet (.ods) format for LibreOffice, OpenOffice, and open-standard workflows.
Drop your files here or click to upload
Supports .xlsx, .xls, .xlsm, .xlsb · up to 50MB · or paste a file from your clipboard
How to Convert Excel to ODS
- Drop in your workbook - .xlsx, .xls, .xlsm and .xlsb are all read. Several at once convert as a batch and download as a ZIP.
- Let it rebuild - the workbook is parsed and an OpenDocument package is written in the page; nothing is uploaded.
- Download the .ods - open it in LibreOffice Calc, Apache OpenOffice or Collabora.
What the converter writes
A proper OpenDocument package, not a renamed workbook: a ZIP containing content.xml with the sheets and cells, styles.xml, meta.xml, and the manifest that declares the whole thing as application/vnd.oasis.opendocument.spreadsheet. Each cell gets an office:value-type and a value:
| In the workbook | In the .ods |
|---|---|
| A number | office:value-type="float" with the exact value |
| Text | office:value-type="string", leading zeros intact |
| TRUE / FALSE | office:value-type="boolean" |
| A formula | table:formula in OpenFormula syntax, alongside the cached result |
| A merged range | A span on the top-left cell plus covered-cell placeholders |
| A hyperlink | A text:a element wrapping the cell text |
| A date or currency cell | The underlying number, with no display format attached |
#N/A, #DIV/0! | An empty cell |
Edge cases
- Number formats do not cross.Dates arrive as serial numbers, currency as bare numbers, percentages as fractions. Values are exact; reapply the formats in Calc with Format > Cells.
- Styling does not cross either. Fonts, fills, borders, alignment, conditional formatting, column widths, row heights and frozen panes are not written. Expect the data, not the design.
- Error cells become blanks rather than errors. Wrap fragile lookups in
IFERRORfirst if the distinction matters. - Comments are dropped. The reverse conversion keeps them, so a round trip through this pair of tools loses annotations in one direction only.
- Defined names are not written, so a formula that refers to a named range will not resolve in Calc. Replace those with cell references before converting.
- Charts, images, pivot tables and macros have no equivalent in the output. A pivot arrives as the values it last showed, if anything at all.
- An encrypted workbook cannot be read and fails with a conversion error, because there is nothing to parse until it is decrypted.
When to use a different tool
- LibreOffice itself is the better converter when formatting matters - it opens .xlsx directly and its Save As keeps far more of the styling than any browser-side rewrite can. Use this page when you need the file converted without installing anything.
- Going the other way: ODS to Excel.
- The recipient only needs the numbers: Excel to CSV, which every spreadsheet application on any platform reads.
- The requirement is an old Microsoft format rather than an open one: XLSX to XLS.
- The layout is the point: Excel to PDF keeps what the sheet looks like; a format conversion keeps what it contains.
Frequently Asked Questions
Yes. Each formula is translated from Excel syntax into OpenFormula - the syntax OpenDocument uses, where a reference is written [.A1] - and written as a table:formula on the cell, so Calc recalculates rather than showing a frozen number. Functions that both applications implement carry over unchanged; one that only Excel has will show as an error in Calc, since the name travels but the implementation does not.
Because the number crossed and its format did not. A date in a spreadsheet is a serial number counted from an epoch, and what makes it read as a date is a display format stored separately. The converted cell holds the right number with no date format applied. Select the column in Calc and use Format > Cells > Date and the date reappears; the same applies to currency and percentage columns, which arrive as 1234.5 and 0.15.
They are written as empty cells. Error values have no representation in the output, so a column of lookups that partly failed arrives with gaps rather than with error markers. If those gaps are meaningful, wrap the formulas in IFERROR before converting so the fallback value is what crosses.
No. Comments are dropped in this direction, which is worth knowing because the reverse conversion does carry them - an ODS annotation becomes an Excel comment when you go the other way. Charts, images, pivot tables, form controls and VBA macros are not written either.
.xlsx, .xls, .xlsm and .xlsb are all accepted, and all produce a .ods. A macro-enabled .xlsm converts its data and formulas but not its macros - LibreOffice Basic and VBA are different languages, and nothing here attempts a translation.
It is the format several European public bodies specify for submissions, and the default in LibreOffice Calc, Apache OpenOffice and Collabora. If the recipient simply uses LibreOffice, note that it opens .xlsx perfectly well - converting is worth it when a policy or an upload form names the OpenDocument format specifically.