RTF
Rich Text Format
RTF is a plain-text file format that encodes rich text (fonts, bold, italic, tables) using ASCII control sequences, making it readable in any text editor even without a rich-text viewer. Microsoft published the specification in 1987 to enable interoperability between its products and third-party software. Because RTF is both human-readable and widely supported, it became a popular interchange format between different word processors before DOCX standardized the field.
| File extensions | .rtf |
| MIME type | application/rtf |
| Developer | Microsoft |
| First released | 1987 |
| Category | Documents |
| Open standard | Yes |
What opens RTF files
- Microsoft Word
- LibreOffice Writer
- Apple TextEdit
- WordPad (Windows)
- Google Docs (via import)
Browse File Formats
Reference details for 53 file formats — extensions, MIME types, what opens each one, and how they convert.
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