i write poetic texts in org mode and i'd like to be able to export them to odt with their horizontal spacing preserved if possible.
Could you copy-paste the poetic text (i.e., the actual org snippet) that you are exporting?
on exporting to odt, all spacing is lost, my lines are left justified.
The Org exporter strips the leading whitespace COMMON to all lines. i.e., The leading COMMON whitespace chars in a verse block are insignificant
if ALL lines in the verse are indendented by 8 spaces, then the Org exporter treats the verse block as if it had ZERO leading indentation
if ALL BUT ONE line is indented by 8 spaces, and the lone one is indented by 6 spaces, then all lines in the exported verse block will be indented by TWO SPACES, save for that lone line which would have NO indentation.
That said, the easiest way for you to achieve what you want is to use the FORK of the ODT exporter (See Project Summary (OpenDocument Text Exporter for Emacs’ Org Mode)).
The keyword you are looking for is#+ODT_EXTRA_STYLES
(See Applying custom styles (OpenDocument Text Exporter for Emacs’ Org Mode))
Here is a sample snippet and the corresponding output
#+odt_preferred_output_format: pdf
#+odt_extra_styles: <style:style style:name="Text_20_body" style:display-name="Text body" style:family="paragraph" style:parent-style-name="Standard" style:class="text">
#+odt_extra_styles: <style:paragraph-properties fo:margin-top="0cm" fo:margin-bottom="0.212cm" loext:contextual-spacing="false">
#+odt_extra_styles: <style:tab-stops/>
#+odt_extra_styles: </style:paragraph-properties>
#+odt_extra_styles: <style:text-properties style:font-name="Courier New1" fo:font-family="'Courier New'" style:font-style-name="Regular" style:font-family-generic="modern" style:font-pitch="fixed" fo:font-size="16pt"/>
#+odt_extra_styles: </style:style>
#+odt_extra_styles: <style:style style:name="OrgVerse" style:family="paragraph" style:parent-style-name="Preformatted_20_Text" style:master-page-name="">
#+odt_extra_styles: <loext:graphic-properties draw:fill="none" draw:fill-color="#729fcf"/>
#+odt_extra_styles: <style:paragraph-properties fo:margin-left="0.499cm" fo:margin-right="0cm" fo:text-indent="0cm" style:auto-text-indent="false" style:page-number="auto" fo:background-color="transparent" fo:padding="0cm" fo:border="none" style:shadow="none">
#+odt_extra_styles: <style:tab-stops>
#+odt_extra_styles: <style:tab-stop style:position="1.0cm"/>
#+odt_extra_styles: </style:tab-stops>
#+odt_extra_styles: </style:paragraph-properties>
#+odt_extra_styles: <style:text-properties style:font-name="Comic Sans MS" fo:font-family="'Comic Sans MS'" style:font-style-name="Regular" style:font-family-generic="script" style:font-pitch="variable" fo:font-size="12pt"/>
#+odt_extra_styles: </style:style>
This is a poem by Rudyard Kipling
#+begin_verse
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:
#+end_verse
(In the above verse block, the indented line uses a SINGLE TAB)

Btw, as you might have guessed, the user manual for the FORKED VERSION of ODT exporter is Top (OpenDocument Text Exporter for Emacs’ Org Mode).
#+odt_styles_file: "/path/to/copied/OrgOdtStyles.xml"
to the Org file. – jagrg Mar 24 '20 at 14:26