Free online SXW to TXT converter

A legacy word processor or script may require a plain-text file instead of the original document format. Converting an SXW document produces a smaller file that can be opened, searched, archived, or processed without a full office suite.

What the SXW format is

SXW is the native word-processing format used by StarOffice Writer and early OpenOffice.org Writer releases, especially version 1.x. It stores document text together with formatting, styles, tables, images, metadata, and other word-processing elements. SXW predates the OpenDocument Text format, .odt, so it is mainly found in older archives and legacy document collections.

What the TXT format is

TXT contains plain characters without fonts, page layout, images, comments, or embedded document structure. Operating systems, text editors, terminals, scripts, and programming languages can read it with little software support. It is suitable for text extraction, simple archival copies, searching, and applications that accept only unformatted text.

TXT does not define one universal character encoding. UTF-8 is the best general-purpose choice; older software may instead require Windows-1252, ISO-8859-1, or another encoding.

How to convert the file with LibreOffice

LibreOffice Writer is the most practical desktop option because it can usually open SXW files and export their readable content as text.

1. Install and open LibreOffice, then open the .sxw file in Writer. If the file does not open correctly, try a current LibreOffice release or the legacy OpenOffice.org version that created it.
2. Choose File → Save As.
3. Set the file type to Text (.txt) or Text - Choose Encoding (.txt), depending on the LibreOffice version.
4. Enter a destination and filename, then select Save.
5. When the character-set dialog appears, choose UTF-8 unless the receiving program specifies another encoding. Confirm the export.

For a no-installation option, use the free converter on 101convert.com: upload the SXW file, select TXT as the output format, start the conversion, and download the result. Do not upload confidential documents unless the service's current privacy terms meet your requirements.

Command-line conversion

On systems with LibreOffice installed, a batch conversion can be run from a terminal:

soffice --headless --convert-to txt:"Text (encoded):UTF-8" --outdir output input.sxw

Replace input.sxw with the source path and output with an existing destination directory. LibreOffice normally creates a TXT file with the same base name. Filter names can vary between releases; if this command fails, use the Writer export dialog or run soffice --convert-to txt --outdir output input.sxw and verify the resulting encoding.

Quality and compatibility limits

• Formatting is discarded: fonts, colors, styles, page margins, and visual layout do not survive.
• Non-text content is lost: images, drawings, embedded objects, and most metadata are not included.
• Complex layouts change: tables, columns, text boxes, footnotes, headers, and footers may be flattened into reading order, separated by tabs or line breaks, or omitted.
• Encoding must match: an incorrect character set can turn accented letters or non-Latin scripts into replacement characters or garbled text.
• Check the output: open the TXT file in a UTF-8-capable editor and inspect special characters, paragraph boundaries, tables, and line breaks before sharing or archiving it.