ODT Document Skill

An .odt file is a ZIP package containing XML files and assets. Use high-level libraries when possible; fall back to raw XML for complex formatting, tracked changes, or precise control.

Reference files

Topic	File
Package structure	references/odt-structure.md
Tracked changes	references/odt-change-tracking.md
Language/locale	references/odt-language.md
XML patterns	references/odf-xml.md
odfdo library	references/odfdo.md
ODTDocument API	references/odt-document.md
Schema validation	references/odf-schemas.md
Tools overview	references/tools.md

Example prompts

• "Extract all text from this ODT and summarize headings and tables."
• "Apply tracked changes to replace these phrases, keeping redlines intact."
• "Set Khmer language/locale and fonts for all paragraph styles."
• "Validate this ODT package and report any missing files."
• "Unpack, edit content.xml, and repack without breaking styles."

Workflow decision tree

Task	Approach
Read/extract text	Use pandoc or odfdo-markdown
Create new document	Read references/odfdo.md, use odfdo library
Simple edits	Read references/odfdo.md, use odfdo library
Tracked changes/annotations	Read references/odt-document.md, use ODTDocument API
Complex XML edits	Read references/odf-xml.md, edit XML directly

Core operations

Text extraction

pandoc document.odt -o document.md      # Convert to Markdown
odfdo-markdown document.odt > out.md    # Alternative

Unpack/pack workflow

python scripts/unpack_odt.py <file.odt> <dir>   # Unpack
# ... edit XML files ...
python scripts/pack_odt.py <dir> <file.odt>     # Repack

Using ODTDocument library

Scripts using ODTDocument require PYTHONPATH set to the skill root. If you're running from a repo root, point it explicitly to the skill folder:

PYTHONPATH=/path/to/repo/skills/odt python your_script.py
# example from repo root
PYTHONPATH=skills/odt python your_script.py

Creating documents with odfdo

Read references/odfdo.md first. Basic example:

from odfdo import Document, Paragraph
doc = Document('text')
doc.body.append(Paragraph('Hello'))
doc.save('output.odt')

Raw XML editing

Read references/odf-xml.md first. Key files:

• content.xml — main document content
• styles.xml — document styles
• META-INF/manifest.xml — package manifest (update when adding files)

Tracked changes workflow

Read references/odt-change-tracking.md for structure details. Key principles:

• Batch changes: Group 3–10 related changes per batch for debugging
• Minimal marking: Only mark text that actually changes

Workflow:

1. Convert to Markdown: pandoc doc.odt -o doc.md
2. Identify and group changes into batches
3. Use ODTDocument.suggest_replacement() / suggest_insertion() / suggest_deletion()
4. Validate: python scripts/validate_changes.py content.xml
5. Repack and verify in LibreOffice

Language support (Khmer, Thai, Arabic, etc.)

See references/odt-language.md. Helper script:

python scripts/set_language.py styles.xml --lang km --country KH --font "Khmer OS System"

Converting ODT to PDF/images

soffice --headless --convert-to pdf document.odt    # ODT → PDF
pdftoppm -jpeg -r 150 document.pdf page             # PDF → images

Dependencies

Required

• odfdo: pip install odfdo (ODT creation/editing)
• defusedxml: pip install defusedxml (safe XML parsing)

Optional

• pandoc: brew install pandoc (Markdown conversion)
• LibreOffice: brew install --cask libreoffice (ODT → PDF)
• jing: Relax NG validator for validate_rng.py
• Poppler: brew install poppler (pdftoppm for PDF → images)

Validation scripts

python scripts/validate_odt.py <dir> --original <file.odt>     # Package validation
python scripts/validate_changes.py <dir>/content.xml           # Change tracking
python scripts/validate_rng.py <dir>/content.xml               # RNG schema (needs jing)
python scripts/smoke_test.py <file.odt> <work_dir>             # Full roundtrip