Open SDW files in your browser
StarOffice's word processor document, before OpenOffice.org. Open one right here, page by page. Nothing leaves your device.
Or drop it anywhere on this page
What you'll see
Your document opens as its pages, with its fonts, pictures and tables.
- Every page • Headers, footers, notes and charts
- Final, Markup or Original • Comments and changes
- Reflow • The text fitted to your screen
- Export • Save as PDF, PNG, JPEG or Markdown
About SDW
Star Division in Hamburg made StarOffice, an office suite for Windows, OS/2, Linux and Solaris, and its StarWriter saved .sdw documents through StarOffice 5.2 in 2000. Sun Microsystems bought Star Division in 1999 and opened its code as OpenOffice.org, which switched to the OpenDocument formats LibreOffice still uses.
An SDW is a Compound File, like Word's DOC, holding StarWriter's own records for the text, its styles, tables, frames, headers and footers. OpenOffice.org dropped the old StarOffice formats, so these files were stranded for years until LibreOffice could read them again.
Filepeek reads the document with libstaroffice, the open source reader LibreOffice uses, compiled to WebAssembly, and lays out every page with its fonts, tables, headers and footers. Reflow fits the text to your screen, search counts every match, and Export saves it as a PDF, its pages as pictures or its text as Markdown.
StarWriter document
.sdw
Format
- MIME type
- application/vnd.stardivision.writer
- Made by
- Star Division, then Sun Microsystems
Inside the file
- Text
- With its styles, lists and tables
- Pages
- Size, margins, headers and footers
- Inside
- A Compound File of StarWriter's records
- Written by
- StarOffice 3 to 5.2
Opens in every browser
Filepeek opens SDW files in Chrome, Edge, Firefox and Safari, with nothing to install. On their own, browsers only download them.
- YouChromeOpens through Filepeek
- YouEdgeOpens through Filepeek
- YouFirefoxOpens through Filepeek
- YouSafariOpens through Filepeek
Apps that open SDW
- WindowsLibreOffice Writer opens it
- MacLibreOffice Writer opens it
- iPhone and iPadNo app built in opens it
- AndroidNo app built in opens it
Questions
How do I open an SDW file?
Drop it on this page or choose Peek an SDW. It opens as its pages, with every page in a rail beside it.
Can I turn it into a PDF or a Word file?
Choose Export, then Save as PDF. For a file to edit, LibreOffice Writer opens SDW files and saves them as ODT or DOCX.
Does it open StarCalc and StarDraw files too?
Yes. See SDC for StarCalc spreadsheets and SDA for StarDraw drawings.