Free online ODT to WEBM converter

A kiosk or video workflow that accepts WEBM but not office documents may require an ODT to be rendered as a timed, page-by-page video. The result shows page images rather than an editable document.

What the ODT format is

ODT is the OpenDocument Text format, used for word-processing documents. LibreOffice Writer and Apache OpenOffice Writer create ODT files; Microsoft Word and other office programs can also open or save them. ODT files commonly contain formatted text, images, tables, and page layouts.

What the WEBM format is

WEBM is a container for video and audio, commonly used for browser playback and video delivery. It can hold VP8 or VP9 video; VP9 can provide good compression, though playback support depends on the device and software. A converted document becomes a video of its pages, not a file with searchable text or working links.

How to convert ODT to WEBM

Online on 101convert.com

1. Upload the ODT file on the converter page. Several files can be added for batch conversion; the page shows the per-file size limit.
2. Before converting, set show each page for to choose how long each page appears.
3. Start the conversion and download the WEBM file.

Offline with desktop software

LibreOffice, available for Windows, macOS, and Linux, can export the document to PDF. FFmpeg and Poppler’s pdftoppm then render the pages and encode them as a silent VP9 video. Install these tools, open a terminal in the folder containing the ODT, and run:

1. Export the ODT as document.pdf using File → Export As → Export as PDF in LibreOffice.
2. Render the PDF pages as PNG images at 150 dpi: pdftoppm -png -r 150 document.pdf page. This creates files such as page-1.png.
3. Create a video that displays each page for five seconds: ffmpeg -framerate 1/5 -i page-%d.png -vf 'scale=trunc(iw/2)*2:trunc(ih/2)*2,format=yuv420p' -c:v libvpx-vp9 -crf 32 -b:v 0 -r 25 output.webm.

The input sequence expects consistently sized page images numbered consecutively. Change 1/5 to adjust the display time per page; increase the rendering resolution with -r in the Poppler command for sharper pages, at the cost of more processing and potentially larger output.

Quality and limitations

PDF rendering turns page content into pixels, so the video does not retain selectable text, document structure, or working hyperlinks. The FFmpeg example produces no audio. Its VP9 encoding uses lossy compression; lower the CRF value for higher quality and generally larger files. Check that the target player supports VP9 in WEBM, or use a converter that offers VP8 if broader compatibility is needed.