Your email address belongs to a school and you are eligible for a free educational premium account.
Learn more

ODP - OpenDocument Presentation File

What is a ODP file

The ODP file extension falls under the Open Office Project created by Sun Microsystems. Sun Microsystems goal was to create an open source series of office applications to compete with paid programs like Microsoft Office. ODP documents are used by the Open Document Presentation program (comparable to Microsoft PowerPoint and PPT files). Due to the XML-basis Open Office uses, all files under that service are portable. When created properly, presentations such as PPT or ODP can be fantastic tools for school or business presentations.

Any program which conforms to the OpenDocument format (such as OpenOffice or StarOffice) can use and edit ODP files. There are differences between ODP and Microsoft-based presentation files. Formatting may not always be converted perfectly between OpenOffice and Microsoft Office files. Features available with the ODP files may not be available in PPT files, and vice versa. Entrance and Exit animations are partially supported between ODP and Microsoft presentations. Color animations, scaling animations, animation sounds, SmartArt, OLE action animations, Master/Layout animations, transition sounds, ActiveX controls, Print settings, Macros, OM, Programmability and more are not supported between the two programs. Some supported features include Animation timing and delays, text animations, triggered animations, media animations, embedding WAV files, hiding scale or slide, custom shows, narration timing, notes, handout masters, and more. Nearly every other feature is at least partially supported between the two.

Here's a small, but not exhaustive list of programs that can open ODP documents:

  • Corel WordPerfect
  • OpenOffice Impress
  • KOffice
  • Lotus Symphony
  • StarOffice
  • NeoOffice