How to open a JTD file without Ichitaro

JustSystems makes Ichitaro, and in Japan it is still in daily use at government offices, schools, law firms and construction companies, some of which keep years of records in it. Outside Japan almost nobody has it, so a .jtd file tends to get stuck with the first person who receives it.

Start with what you need

Reading it, printing it and sending it back with a change are different jobs, and each has a different answer.

1. Ichitaro Viewer (free, Windows)

JustSystems gives away a viewer that opens and prints Ichitaro documents. It cannot edit or save them. If all you need is to read what was sent, or print it, the viewer is enough.

• Runs on Windows 10 and 11. There is no Mac version.
• Opens documents from Ichitaro version 2 onwards: .jtd, .jtdc, .jttc and .jtsd, plus .doc, .docx, .odt, .rtf and .txt.
• Prints the way Ichitaro does, including scaling and several pages on one sheet.
• The current version is 32.0.3, released in October 2023.

JustSystems publishes the viewer on its Japanese website, so expect the download page in Japanese. The viewer cannot save, so if you need the text in Word, use one of the routes below.

2. Word will not open it

Word has no Ichitaro import. Old versions of Word once shipped with an Ichitaro converter, but assume the Word you have today cannot open a .jtd.

A search for a converter also turns up Ichitaro Document Filter, an extension for OpenOffice. It was published in January 2009, runs on Windows with OpenOffice 3.0 to 3.4, and reads files from Ichitaro 8 to 11. Its own page warns that it has not been updated recently and might not work with current versions of OpenOffice.

Two routes are dependable:

• Ask the sender to send it again as a .docx or PDF. This is the fastest route and gives the most faithful copy.
• Ask someone who has Ichitaro to open it and use Save As to make a .docx.

When Ichitaro converts to .docx, indents and table borders can shift. If the layout matters, compare the result with the original before you pass it on.

3. Open and fix it in your browser (JTD editor)

Sometimes the job is small: check a date, change one number and send the file back. That should not take a copy of Ichitaro.

JTD is a proprietary format with no published specification. We worked out how to read and write it by studying publicly available documents one at a time, and released the engine as open source (EZPZ File JTD). The editor runs inside your browser, so the file is never uploaded, and it works on a Mac. On the English page its menus are in English.

• Shows body text, tables, borders, page size, indents and line spacing close to how Ichitaro shows them.
• Lets you change the text and add tables and page breaks. Menus and shortcuts follow Ichitaro, so Ctrl+5 centres a line, for example.
• Saves in Ichitaro format (.jtd), and we have checked that the latest Ichitaro opens the result. It also saves as Word (.docx), PDF and plain text.
• Not shown yet: shapes and pictures, vertical text, headers and footers, and multi-column layouts. Compressed .jttc files are not supported yet, and neither is saving a brand-new document as .jtd.

Open the JTD editor

For documents with many drawings or vertical text, use Ichitaro Viewer or ask for a PDF for now.

4. On a Mac

Ichitaro Viewer runs only on Windows, and there is no Ichitaro software for the Mac.

• Open the JTD editor in Safari or Chrome. You can read the file, fix it and save it.
• If you need the exact layout, ask the sender for a PDF.
• Run Windows in a virtual machine and use the viewer there.
• Open it on a Windows PC at work, print it to PDF and take the PDF home.

If you do not read Japanese

Most .jtd files that leave Japan are written in Japanese. Translation tools do not read .jtd, so first get a .docx or PDF: save one from the JTD editor, or ask the sender. Translating a whole document on a website means uploading it to that service, which matters for contracts and anything with personal details.

When it is fine to upload a work document

Stop the .jtd files coming

One file you can work around. If a .jtd arrives every month, ask for another format. "We don't have Ichitaro here, could you send it as a PDF?" usually works, because most senders are not choosing Ichitaro on purpose. It is simply what their office saves in by default.

Summary

• To read or print it, Ichitaro Viewer is free, but Windows only.
• Word cannot open a .jtd. Asking the sender for a .docx or PDF is the surest fix.
• The JTD editor on this site opens it on a Mac or PC without Ichitaro and saves it as .jtd, Word or PDF.
• If they keep arriving, agree on a different format with the sender.