Please let users choose which file types OpenDocument Reader handles

[krbln]

Please let users choose which file types OpenDocument Reader handles

Feature request / usability issue

OpenDocument Reader currently registers itself as a handler for a very broad range of file types. This can lead to files being opened in OpenDocument Reader even when the user only wants to use the app for OpenDocument files such as ODT, ODS and ODP.

For example, on iPadOS 26.5.2:

1. I receive an email with a PDF attachment in Apple Mail.
2. I tap the PDF attachment.
3. Instead of opening in Apple's built-in Files/Quick Look viewer, the PDF opens in OpenDocument Reader.
4. The same PDF can be opened correctly in the Files app using Open With → Preview with “Overview”.

This is confusing because it is not immediately obvious that the document has been transferred from the Files/Mail viewing context into OpenDocument Reader.

Suggested solution

I think OpenDocument Reader should give the user control over which file formats the app registers itself for.

For example, on the first launch, the app could ask:

Which file types would you like OpenDocument Reader to open?

with selectable options such as:

• ODT
• ODS
• ODP
• DOC/DOCX
• XLS/XLSX
• PPT/PPTX
• PDF
• Other supported formats

The user could then choose exactly which formats the app should handle.

There should also be a setting later in the app, for example:

Settings → File types / Supported formats

so that these choices can be changed at any time.

Why I think this would be preferable

An app supporting a file format does not necessarily mean that the user wants the app to become the default handler for that format.

In particular, I may want:

• ODT → OpenDocument Reader
• ODS → OpenDocument Reader
• ODP → OpenDocument Reader
• PDF → Apple's built-in Files/Overview viewer

The current behavior makes OpenDocument Reader effectively "take over" formats that I may want another application or Apple's system viewer to handle.

Possible technical reason

I noticed that the iOS project registers broad UTTypes in CFBundleDocumentTypes, including:

public.composite-content

Since PDF (com.adobe.pdf) is a subtype of public.composite-content, this may cause iPadOS to consider OpenDocument Reader a suitable handler for PDFs.

Perhaps the app could register more specific document types, or dynamically control which types are exposed to the system based on the user's preferences.

Environment

• iPadOS 26.5.2
• OpenDocument Reader
• Apple Mail
• PDF attachment

I would really appreciate a user-configurable solution rather than having the app automatically register itself for every supported format.

Thank you for considering this!

THANK YOU FOR YOUR WORK!

[andiwand]

thank you for the feedback @krbln !

I will need to think about this a bit more - I am not using iOS and on Android I can choose for each file type which app should open it. I can also default it. I believe there is something similar on iOS?

if this exists on iOS, would you still prefer to select it in the app? and if so why? - just trying to understand what should be covered here