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How to open .OTH files on Linux

To open .OTH files on Linux, open the file in an ODF-compatible office suite (for example, LibreOffice).

Step-by-step instructions

  1. Open the file in an ODF-compatible office suite (for example, LibreOffice).
  2. If double-clicking doesn’t work, use your file manager’s Open With option and select the office suite.
  3. If your desktop environment misidentifies the file type, check that shared-mime-info mappings are up to date and try again.

Common issues

The .OTH file won’t open or shows “unknown format”

This typically happens when the installed app doesn’t support OpenDocument template types (specifically the ODF text-web template) or the file association is missing.

  1. Open the file from within an ODF-compatible office suite (for example, LibreOffice) instead of relying on double-click associations.
  2. On Linux, ensure your system’s MIME database (shared-mime-info) is updated so .oth is mapped correctly.
  3. If possible, try opening on another desktop system with an ODF-capable suite to confirm it’s not device-specific.

It opens as a new untitled document instead of the template file

Many office suites treat templates as a basis for creating a new document, so they open the template by generating a new document instance.

  1. Use Save As to save the new document under a different name and keep the original .OTH unchanged.
  2. If you need to edit the template itself, look for an option like “Edit Template” or open it from within the application’s template manager (behavior varies by suite).

The file appears corrupted or cannot be parsed

ODF files are packaged formats and can fail to open if the download is incomplete or the internal package structure (including the mimetype entry) is damaged.

  1. Re-download or re-copy the file from the original source and try again.
  2. Try opening it in a different ODF-compatible application to rule out a single-app parsing issue.

Wrong app keeps opening .OTH by default

Your OS may associate .oth with an incorrect application, especially if MIME/extension mappings were changed.

  1. Change the default app association for .oth to your ODF-capable office suite in system settings.
  2. On Linux desktops, refresh/update shared-mime-info and re-log if associations don’t update immediately.

Still can’t open your .OTH file?

Recover a deleted or lost .OTH file

If the file was deleted by mistake or the drive was formatted, data recovery software may be able to get it back. Stop writing to that drive right away, because new data can overwrite what you want to recover.

MiniTool Power Data Recovery

Windows software that recovers deleted or lost files from PCs and external drives such as HDDs, SSDs, USB drives and memory cards, after deletion, formatting or a crash.

Wondershare Recoverit

Windows and Mac software that recovers deleted or lost files from computers and external drives such as HDDs, SSDs, USB drives and SD cards.

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Security note

.OTH is an ODF package; like other complex document formats, it relies on parsers in office software—only open files from sources you trust, especially if the file is unexpected.

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