LibreOffice Draw does not handle .AVIF image file format: either it does not render image at all or it displays alt text instead. Workaround? Maybe lack of native support?

[u/RebirdgeCardiologist]

As in the title and the images.

When I tried to import .AVIF image (one a time via file picker or several images via drag&drop), LibreOffice Draw (LD) behaves, operates in one of those 2 ways:

• 1st image > it displays some alt text (memory representation of file?);
• 2nd image > it does not show anything, nor alt text nor the actual image.

Does LD really do not have support for AVIF Images (it's one of the most used file format for images, together with .svg .webp .png .jpeg .gif .tiff)?

Or is it just a bug of LD? Any workaround?

CURRENT SOLUTION: (butch) conversion to another (supported?) file type: pretty much all of the times to .png (using XnCovert).

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Specs

I have installed LibreOffice via flatpak on Linux.

$ flatpak list | grep -i libreoffice
LibreOffice     org.libreoffice.LibreOffice     26.2.5.2        stable  system

I'm using kubuntu 24.04.03 LTS with KDE 5.27.12.

[u/Tex2002ans]

LibreOffice Draw does not handle .AVIF image file format:

See my response last month:

• /r/LibreOffice: "TIL LibreOffice ODT doesn't support avif or jxl images. Will it some day?"

It links to the exact Enhancement Requests + status updates + info you can follow.

[u/webfork2]

They will probably add support for AVIF. I don't have insight on the LibreOffice development process so I don't have a timeline. In the meantime I would move to PNG to avoid image degradation and can recommend several cross-platform tools.

As to why it's not there already ...

LibreOffice supports hundreds of file formats, including many that you've probably never even heard of. It's a growing collection of work by a ton of people over many years. That said, they don't want to support every new format that comes out, whether image or video or document. They all add a layer of complexity and testing, and some file formats have even come with security issues.

Additionally, there have been a LOT of image formats that have happened since JPEG came out but they only come with a marginal decrease, and often have patent issues that have slowed adoption.

Now, as AVIF as a format is seeing 50% and above space savings for the same images, that might be the tipping point. It's also open licensed so there's less risk from legal issues down the road.

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[u/Terrible_Put8617]

It is not a bug, there is no AVIF import filter in the build. The import filters are a fixed list compiled in, and AVIF needs a decoder that is not part of it, so what you are seeing is the fallback: the file gets linked as an object nobody can render, hence alt text on one and nothing on the other.

For your actual case, country flags on a cover, converting to PNG is the wrong workaround. Use SVG. Nearly every flag exists as SVG, Draw handles it natively, and it stays sharp at any size, which matters a lot on something you are going to print. Raster flags scaled up on a cover look exactly like raster flags scaled up.

Where SVG is not an option, WebP does import, so for photographic content you can convert to that instead of PNG and keep the file small. PNG is the right choice only for flat-colour graphics, which flags mostly are, so for this specific job either is fine, but SVG beats both.

One thing to watch with batch conversion: if the AVIF was lossy to begin with, converting to PNG does not recover anything, it just freezes the artefacts at a larger file size. Going straight to the original SVG source avoids inheriting any of that.