How to open ods files in Excel?

What is the best way to open ods files in Excel 2003?

Is there some plug-in available? Should I use some convertor to xls? Or would it be best if I just used LibreOffice (or OpenOffice)?

The file I want to open shouldn't contain anything fancy, so I probably don't need a solution that understands every detail of the format.

Solution 1:

Using OpenOffice is probably the easiest option IMO because there's no file format conversion necessary and OpenOffice is freely available.

There is a BSD licensed Microsoft Office 2003 plugin that is available, OpenXML/ODF Translator Add-in for Office. I don't have Microsoft Office so I'm unable to try it.

Solution 2:

Would it be best if I just used LibreOffice (or OpenOffice)?

Yes, it would probably work best if you just used Libre/OpenOffice. As much as OpenOffice does a good job of viewing Microsoft files, it doesn't do a perfect job. Sometimes there will be little differences (more noticeable with word documents), so it's always best to use Office for Microsoft files and OpenOffice for the open formats. But once you do that, you can save it as an xls and then it should open in Excel 2003 just fine.