SXW to ODT Converter

An SXW file is a legacy text document format associated with Sun Microsystems' StarOffice and the early versions of OpenOffice.org Writer (prior to version 2.0). It relies on the OpenOffice.org XML format, structuring data within a ZIP-compressed archive that contains XML files defining text, styles, and settings. This format was the direct technical precursor to the ISO/IEC 26300 OpenDocument Format (ODT) and shares a similar XML-based architecture, making it highly compressible and open for parsing.

Native support for SXW is absent in default OS installations but is standard in open-source office suites. LibreOffice Writer and Apache OpenOffice are the recommended applications for opening and converting SXW files to modern formats like ODT or DOCX. Microsoft Word can usually open these files if the appropriate ODF converters or compatibility packs are installed, though layout discrepancies may occur.

ODT is the text document format of the OpenDocument standard (ISO/IEC 26300), maintained by the OASIS consortium. It employs an XML-based architecture where the document's content, styles, settings, and metadata are stored in separate XML files (e.g., content.xml, styles.xml) and compressed into a single ZIP container. It serves as the default native format for the LibreOffice and Apache OpenOffice suites.

The file opens natively in LibreOffice Writer and Apache OpenOffice Writer on Linux, Windows, and macOS. Microsoft Word (2010 and later) and Google Docs also possess built-in import filters to read and edit ODT files, though minor formatting discrepancies may occur during conversion.