Convert ODG to PDF

How it works

Tap the box (on a phone) or click it (on a computer) and pick your ODG file; you can select several drawings together, and each becomes a separate PDF. The tool opens the .odg package saved by LibreOffice or OpenOffice Draw inside your browser: it walks the pages (draw:page) in content.xml, reads every shape with its position and size, takes the page size from styles.xml and draws each shape onto a PDF page at the same spot. A concrete case: you drew a floor plan or a process flowchart in Draw on a school or small-business computer running Ubuntu, the file reached your phone by email, and the phone cannot open an .odg. Save the attachment, tap the box on this page, pick the file from Files on an iPhone or from Downloads on Android, then press "Convert to PDF"; the PDF downloads in a few seconds and opens everywhere. What is carried over: rectangles (rounded corners included), ellipses and circles (arc, pie and chord kinds), lines and connectors with their arrowheads, polygons, freeform paths and Draw's built-in shapes (rounded box, diamond, triangle, arrows, flowchart symbols); fill colour, line colour and width, dashed lines, rotation and groups; text inside shapes centred, text in text boxes from the top left, with bold and font size; JPEG and PNG pictures in their own frame. The page size comes from the file: the width and height set under "Page > Page Properties" in Draw (A4 landscape 11.69 × 8.27 in, Letter landscape 11 × 8.5 in) go into the PDF unchanged; if they cannot be read, A4 portrait is assumed and the result line says so. The honest limit: a gradient fill becomes a single colour (the midpoint of its two colours), a hatch fill a lighter tone, shadows and transparency are not drawn; charts, OLE objects, audio, video and form controls are skipped and counted in the result line; the font is always Noto Sans, italics are not carried over. If the look has to match exactly, use Draw's own "File > Export as PDF"; this tool is for reaching the drawing on a device without Draw.

This tool is also known as odg to pdf, odg to pdf converter, convert odg to pdf, open odg file, libreoffice draw to pdf, odg file to pdf on phone.

What is ODG?

ODG (OpenDocument Graphics) is the format LibreOffice Draw and OpenOffice Draw save drawings in; it is the drawing member of the ISO 26300 OpenDocument family (alongside .odt text, .ods spreadsheets and .odp presentations). A file with the .odg extension is really a compressed package: all pages are draw:page elements listed in order in content.xml; each shape carries its own position, width and height in centimetres or inches (svg:x, svg:y, svg:width, svg:height), and a rotated shape is written with a transform matrix (draw:transform) instead. The page size and master page live in styles.xml, pictures in the Pictures folder, and the small mimetype file names the type. Draw's built-in shapes (draw:custom-shape) are defined in a small formula language: handles such as corner rounding or arrow thickness (draw:modifiers) and equations derived from them (draw:equation) produce the outline; this tool evaluates those equations and draws the shape as Draw would. Phones, email previews and most web portals cannot open .odg, so the copy you share is converted to PDF; password-protected .odg and flat-XML .fodg are not read here.

What is PDF?

PDF is the fixed-page format that makes a drawing look the same on every device: the page size, the place of every shape, the position of every label and the font are written into the file, so a plan does not shift and an arrowhead does not move on a phone without Draw, in a company document system or on a printer. This tool builds the PDF like a drawing: shapes are written as vector paths (no blur when you zoom in), labels as selectable text and pictures as embedded images. The page size is taken from the drawing's own layout and written in points (1 in = 72 pt; A4 landscape is 841.89 × 595.28 pt, Letter landscape 792 × 612 pt); because centimetre and inch measurements are carried over without rounding, a plan drawn at 1:100 keeps that scale in the PDF. A font that covers accented letters is embedded, so é, ñ or ğ show correctly on the reader's device and the text stays searchable.

What is the difference between ODG and ODP?

Both are LibreOffice OpenDocument packages, and their insides look surprisingly alike: in both, pages are draw:page elements and shapes use the same drawing vocabulary (draw:rect, draw:custom-shape, draw:frame). The difference is in purpose and in the body element: ODP (Impress) is a presentation, its body is office:presentation, each page is a slide, and boxes carry placeholder classes such as title or outline; ODG (Draw) is a drawing, its body is office:drawing, the page has a paper or poster size, and where a shape sits is the meaning itself. That is why the two tools behave differently: ODP to PDF writes slide content as a top-to-bottom flow (in a presentation, order and text matter), while this page draws shapes at their positions (in a diagram, layout matters; stack the boxes and an arrow no longer points at anything). A Draw drawing can be pasted into Impress and a slide into Draw, but for the PDF you need the right page: .odp goes to ODP to PDF, .odg comes here.

What is kept, what is lost?

Kept: page order and size (an empty page becomes an empty PDF page, the size is kept to the millimetre); rectangles (with rounded corners), ellipses and circles (arc, pie, chord), lines, connectors and arrowheads (drawn as a triangle in the line colour), polygons and polylines, freeform paths (Bézier curves included), Draw's built-in shapes (rounded box, diamond, triangle, arrows, flowchart symbols, callouts and other formula-defined shapes), groups, and rotated or skewed shapes. Fill colour, line colour and width, dashed lines; page background colour and objects placed on the master page (a company letterhead template). Text inside a shape is centred horizontally and vertically, text in a text box starts at the top left, with bold and font size; paragraph alignment (left, centre, right) and bullet lists. JPEG and PNG pictures placed in a frame are embedded at their own size and rotation.

Lost: a gradient fill becomes the single colour halfway between its two colours; a hatch fill becomes a lighter tone of its colour; bitmap fills, shadows, transparency, 3D objects and Fontwork are not drawn. Charts, OLE objects (an embedded Calc table, a formula), audio, video and form controls are skipped, and the result line says how many. SVG, GIF, WMF, EMF and TIFF pictures cannot be embedded and are counted. The font is always Noto Sans (embedded for accented letters); italics and underline are not carried over, bold is imitated with a second pass; text that does not fit its shape overflows as it does in Draw, there is no automatic shrinking. Hidden layers and line-end styles (only the arrow triangle is drawn) are ignored. If the look has to be identical, Draw's own "File > Export as PDF" is the right tool.

Page size, scale and large drawings

The page size is read from the drawing: the width and height under "Page > Page Properties" in Draw (A4 landscape 11.69 × 8.27 in, Letter landscape 11 × 8.5 in, or whatever you set) become the PDF page size; the margins are part of the drawing, so nothing is added. One inch is written as 72 points, so the scale does not change: a floor plan drawn at 1:50 printed from the PDF with "actual size" selected gives a 2 cm wall that is still 2 cm on paper. Poster and sheet sizes (28 × 40 in, A1, A0) keep their own size; when printing on a Letter or A4 printer, choose "fit to page" in the printer dialog. If the page layout cannot be read (styles.xml missing or damaged), the tool assumes A4 portrait and says so in the result line; the shapes are still drawn at their own positions.

In a multi-page drawing, each Draw page is one PDF page and the order is kept. If you want several drawings in one PDF, each .odg downloads as its own PDF; feed those files to the PDF merge tool. A password-protected .odg does not open: untick "Save with password" in Draw's "Save As" dialog and save again. Flat-XML .fodg and the old OpenOffice 1.x .sxd format are not accepted; save as .odg in Draw. If the extension is .odp, the file is a presentation, not a drawing; use ODP to PDF. There are ODT to PDF and ODS to PDF pages for .odt and .ods, and on a wrong file the tool names the right page.

Frequently asked questions

How do I convert an ODG file to PDF?

Tap the box, pick your .odg file and press "Convert to PDF"; there are no settings, and the PDF downloads in a few seconds. Nothing is installed: no LibreOffice, no OpenOffice, no other program, and it works on a phone. Shapes are drawn where they sit, at the same size and colour, and labels are written as selectable text. On a computer with LibreOffice, Draw's "File > Export as PDF" also keeps gradients and shadows exactly; this page is for a device without Draw.

Is my file uploaded to a server?

No. The PDF generator and the font download with the page, and the code that opens the .odg package, reads the shapes and writes the PDF runs on your device. The drawing itself, its name and its content never leave the browser; once the page has loaded, the conversion completes even if the internet drops. That is the point for an unapproved floor plan, a project diagram or a company organisation chart.

How do I open an ODG file, which program opens it?

LibreOffice Draw and OpenOffice Draw open .odg; both are free. On Windows or a Mac without LibreOffice, if you only need to view or send the drawing, make a PDF on this page instead of installing anything: every phone, browser and mail app opens PDF. To edit the drawing you need LibreOffice; Microsoft Visio and PowerPoint do not open .odg.

Why do some shapes not look exactly the same?

The tool carries the geometry and position of every shape but simplifies some decoration: a gradient fill becomes the single colour halfway between its two colours, a hatch becomes a lighter tone, shadows and transparency are not drawn, and the font changes to Noto Sans. Arrowheads are drawn as triangles in the line colour; Draw's special arrow styles (round, double) are not carried over. Position, size, order and text are right, so the diagram reads correctly; for an identical look use Draw's own PDF export.

Why is a picture from the drawing missing in the PDF?

Only JPEG and PNG pictures are embedded; SVG, GIF, WMF, EMF and TIFF pictures added to Draw are skipped, and the result line says how many could not be embedded. The fix: right-click the picture in Draw, choose "Save Image" and export it as PNG, insert the PNG into the drawing and save the file. An embedded Calc table or a chart is an OLE object; those are skipped and counted too.