What is an RTF file?
Rich Text Format
- Developed By
- Microsoft Corporation
- Initial Release
- 1987
- MIME Type
- application/rtf
The Rich Text Format (RTF) is a proprietary document file format with published specifications developed by Microsoft Corporation in 1987 for cross-platform document interchange. It encodes formatted text and graphics using 7-bit ASCII characters, utilizing a structure of control words, control symbols, and groups to define formatting properties such as bolding, italics, and fonts. Unlike binary formats, RTF is human-readable and was designed to facilitate interoperability between different word processing software and operating systems before the standardization of XML-based formats.
How to open an RTF file
Due to its design as an interchange format, RTF possesses native support across almost all major operating systems without requiring third-party installation. Microsoft Windows opens RTF files natively with WordPad or Microsoft Word, while macOS utilizes TextEdit. For Linux users or cross-platform consistency, LibreOffice Writer and Apache OpenOffice provide robust handling of the format's styling attributes.