RTF

RTF, which stands for Rich Text Format, is a document file format developed by Microsoft. It is used for cross-platform document interchange, primarily between Microsoft products and other applications. RTF files can be read and written by most word processing software, making them useful for sharing formatted documents across different programs and operating systems.

RTF supports various text formatting options, such as bold, italics, different fonts and sizes, text alignment, bullet points, and more. Since RTF is a common standard, it's supported by various word processors across different platforms, including Microsoft Word, WordPad, Apple Pages, LibreOffice Writer, and others.

RTF can include embedded images and objects from other applications, though more complex objects may not always be rendered perfectly across different word processors. RTF files are fundamentally plain text, which makes them human-readable and editable with simple text editors. The formatting is encoded using special RTF commands.

RTF is used when there's a need to share a document between different word processing programs or operating systems while preserving basic formatting. It's suitable for creating simple documents without the need for complex formatting and features available in more advanced word processing programs. RTF can serve as a fallback interchange format when more sophisticated formats like DOCX or ODT might not be supported or practical.

An RTF file could contain a text like:

{\rtf1\ansi{\fonttbl\f0\fswiss Helvetica;}\f0\pard
This is some {\b bold} text.\par
}

Info

This example shows RTF-encoded text where "This is some bold text" appears in a Helvetica font, with the word "bold" in boldface.

Compared to more modern formats like DOCX, RTF is less feature-rich and might not support complex layouts, advanced styling, or certain types of embedded multimedia content. Like many document formats, RTF files can potentially contain harmful scripts or embedded objects, though modern word processors typically have security measures to handle such risks.