ODS extension - how to open?

The ODS format has recently gained great popularity. Who does not know, these files carry data from spreadsheets, or more precisely, free spreadsheets. Its main competitor is, of course, XLS, with which the well-known Excel program works. But which application works with the ODS format? How to open it? This is what we will talk about in this article.

Programs for working with ODS

Before figuring out how to open an ODS file, let's look at the format itself. The first thing you should know is, as was said, the format of free spreadsheets. It was created in 2006 under the leadership of the OpenDocument office suite development team, and became immediately standardized in all their programs. In those days, Microsoft Office with the XLS extension dominated the market, but their tables were not free, so when the developers found out that the ODS format had appeared, they immediately began to popularize it.

Currently, other program developers have begun to reckon with this format, and almost all table editors have a function for interacting with ODS. The article will provide three popular methods, and you will learn how to open ODS.

Method number 1: OpenOffice

It was already said a little above that ODS is the standard format for a spreadsheet editor from the standard OpenOffice package, so, to open a file of this type, you should first use the Calc program from this set of programs. Let's look at ways to open this format with a specific example.

By installing the OpenOffice software package in the operating system, all files with the ODS extension will be associated with the Calc program, so to open them you just need to double-click on the desired file. Or use the following statement:

1. Launch the file manager "Explorer".
2. Go to the directory with the desired file.
3. Double click on it. Or right-click and select "Open."

Here it’s worth clarifying that this method will work only if the program settings have not been changed by you. Otherwise, you can return them back or use the following instruction:

1. Launch the OpenOffice program.
2. In the main menu, select "Open." By the way, this same action can be performed by pressing Ctrl + O.
3. In the "Explorer" window that appears, go to the folder with the ODS file.
4. Highlight it.
5. Click on the "Open" button.

Now you know how to open an ODS file, but this is just the first of three programs, so let's move on to the second.

Method number 2: LibreOffice

The LibreOffice office suite is in many ways similar to OpenOffice, and this is no accident. The fact is that they have one and the same developer, just at some point the staff split in two - one part of the team continued to develop OpenOffice, and the other started creating LibreOffice. It follows that the programs work the same way and the instructions for opening ODS files are similar for them:

1. Launch the Calc program from the LibreOffice office suite.
2. Click on "File", which is located on the top panel.
3. From the pop-up menu, select "Open."
4. In the Explorer window that appears after that, go to the directory with the ODS file.
5. Having previously selected the file, click the "Open" button.

As you can see, the instruction is similar to the previous one, the changes concern only the application interface, and even then to a small extent. Now you know how to open the ODS format, now let's move on to the last method.

Method number 3: Excel

This program was previously mentioned, as far as you can remember, Excel supports the XLS format, but when the ODS extension began to gain popularity, the Microsoft development team had to reckon with it, respectively, they added ODS support to their spreadsheet editor. Here's how to open an ODS file in it:

1. Open Excel.
2. Click on the "File" button or the Microsoft Office icon (depending on the version of the program).
3. In the menu, select "Open."
4. In the "Explorer", go to the folder with the ODS file and open it.

The file will open. Perhaps the program will offer to adapt the format for XLS, in this case, click "Yes." Now you know how to open the ODS file, we hope the article was useful to you.