Thanks to Giles[1] for introducing us to the "--convert-to" option of soffice.exe. The option seems to be a fairly recent development[2].
With this change, one can export to pdf (or any other popular format) via odt by a simple #+begin_src emacs-lisp (setq org-export-odt-preferred-output-format "pdf") #+end_src There is no need to install additional converters. It is assumed that the user has a working and fairly recent LibreOffice installation. Footnotes: [1] http://imperfectsoftware.blogspot.in/2012/01/one-of-my-less-enjoyable-tasks-is-to.html [2] There seems to be a bunch of fairly recent bugs with this option. So a cutting edge LibreOffice would definitely be needed. http://www.google.co.in/search?q=headless+%22--convert-to%22+site%3Alibreoffice.org&btnG=Search&sclient=psy-ab&hl=en&site=&source=hp&gbv=1&sei=L_gqT97rIMXorAf248C6DA Feedback welcome. --