Can MS-Word open encrypted ODT-Files

Is it possible to open LibreOffice encrypted documents using MS-Word 2010? The data format is odt and the password is known. Is the encryption secure?

asked Jan 10, 2016 at 22:45 51 1 1 silver badge 3 3 bronze badges

Welcome on SuperUser. If no one will came out with the answer you can always install libreoffice on the windows machine and open the file with this suite. It's Free & Open Source. :-)

Commented Jan 10, 2016 at 22:55 the problem is I cannot install anything write now :( But need to know the answer. Commented Jan 10, 2016 at 22:59

You may find interesting to read here. I cannot verify it at moment, BTW you can always ask to export the odt file in a word format that you read for sure, then compress and encrypt the file with something like zip or winzip (or a in more secure way with GPG), finally you can open it again in the windows computer.

Commented Jan 10, 2016 at 23:10

1 Answer 1

LibreOffice uses encryption to enforce password protection on documents. The encryption algorithm used varies between versions of LibreOffice and the document format specification.

For example, LibreOffice 3.5 uses AES-256 for password protected files in the ODF 1.2 and ODF 1.2 Extended file formats. See LibreOffice 3.5 release notes for more info.

So the security of your document is subject to the complexity of your password and the strength of the encryption algorithm. You either need to know/guess/brute-force the password, or break the encryption algorithm through potential vulnerabilities.

As to the compatibility with Microsoft Word. Microsoft Word for Office 365 (16.0.10827.20118) cannot handle encrypted ODT documents saved by LibreOffice Writer (6.1.2.1), with a known password. Just tested.