Talk:Rich Text Format

message: It is my understanding that the opposite is true. WordPad used to save as .DOC by default and now saves .RTF
:I believe you are right and have edited accordingly. I know for a fact that WordPad once supported the Word 6.0 format, but as for defaulting to it, I'm not sure. Can anyone on an older version of Windows verify? --Mark Yen 04:44, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: WordPad

message: is rtf format widely supported on Linux platforms?
: RTF is supported under Linux by Ted (word processor) and Abiword. I am puzzled why these are not listed here.
where does Apple's .rtf format fit in?
(rtf is the standard format for rich text in Mac OS X, in its default text editor TextEdit.)
what's the common rich text format used in linuxes? (if there is one at all)
thanks
Xah P0lyglut 07:19, 2003 Nov 29 (UTC)
Probably the best example of Linux standard "rich text" is HTML. But there are editors for Microsoft RTF as well. PeteVerdon
Yes, and HTML is widely-used today, probably more than RTF. I've added a reference to HTML. Perhaps we should include a link to the PDF format, as well, since it is similar too? dionyziz 18:49, Feb 13, 2005 (UTC)
:DocBook
Btw rtf is supported by most Linux word processors, including OOo. --grin ✎ 10:40, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Linux

message: Perhaps we schould include the basic RTF code (for bold/italic/underline and font face/font size)? dionyziz 18:49, Feb 13, 2005 (UTC)
:Well, perhaps not. The official specification is already linked for RTF authors; and 'basic RTF codes' would serve no purpose for non-authors. This kind of information is just not encyclopedic.—Herbee 19:23, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: RTF code

message: RTF Spec for Word 97 -- link appears to be out-of-date
A link to the RTF v1.3 spec -- link yields an access denied
----
Microsoft refers to a March 1987 RTF specification—presumably a pre-1.0 version. Does anyone have access to the actual text?
—Herbee 19:18, 25 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Out-of-Date

message: Does it support images? What kind?
Yes, it does support images. However, I don't know which format they use to store them... dionyziz 18:20, Feb 13, 2005 (UTC)
Added information regarding image support (only the fact that it supports images, actually). Perhaps we should add more? dionyziz 18:49, Feb 13, 2005 (UTC)
The image format seems to be a “metafile” of some sort, though I don’t know if it’s the same as WMF (Windows Metafile). Upon doing a Paste Special in OpenOffice Writer, the dialog box shows “GDI Metafile” and “Picture (Metafile)” as options. As for the details of that format, they’re simple to figure out by opening the RTF with a text editor: the data is encoded entirely in hex digits in ASCII, with a palette coming first if the image has one, and then the image data (palette index numbers or RGB triplets). It seems only 8-bit palettes are supported, and whatever values the image palette hasn't filled are filled with values from the Websafe palette. I think this is enough information about RTF image support, with the exception of the actual name of that format. --Shlomital 20:49, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: According to the spec linked to in the article it supports a number of metafile formats and in addition PNG, JPEG and macpict (QuickDraw). Mlewan 19:09, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: This needs to be updated as there are problems with RTF compressing images. If you add a 100kb image, it often bloats the rtf to over 3 meg! --78.33.40.66 (talk) 16:08, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

text: Yes it supports two kinds of metafile, the .WMF kind and the .EMF kind, as in what they call enhanced metafile. These files are a basic Windows format, albeit a bit ageing now. The Windows API supports these files, so you can draw an image with PlayEnhMetaFile function for EMF and that seems to also work for WMF standard that Microsoft say one should not use as the EMF version is better. They bloat out the files because Word writes it in hexadecimal and so you lose half the bitspace as RTF is 7-bit and then MS writes it twice! That's for backwards compatibility apparently. A lot of RTF is redundant because of compatibility provision, but this really becomes noticeable with images. Rows in tables are also written twice, but you only lose a few hundred wasted bytes, not megabytes.79.67.251.15 (talk) 20:52, 22 September 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: Does it support images? What kind?

message: Has someone made an editor/tool for rtf that shows the markup directly like notepad, but helps out with things like intellisense/autocomplete/keyword insight popups?  I.E. not a wysiwyg editor like a word processor, but more of a tool for rtf application developers a bit like how visual studio works for HTML.
:Well, jEdit has RTF syntax highlighting. —Caesura(t) 02:51, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Tools

message: A Unicode character escape needs to be followed by the character in the current code page which most closely represents it, and the code point also needs to be represented as a 16 bit signed decimal integer.  I have corrected this information as the previous version was misleading. Jammycakes 13:32, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: If you have used \uc0, then you don't follow a Unicode character escape with a substitution character.--Jwwalker 21:18, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

text: Does the Unicode format really take a "signed" decimal integer? How can a negative value possibly be valid? It would be my guess that unsigned would be the correct adjective. —Ksn 17:39, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Yes, it is signed, according to the RTF specification. Values greater than 32767 have to be specified as a negative number eg 0xFEFF would be -257. The point about the \uc0 is correct though. Jammycakes 18:26, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanx. Leave it to Microsoft to specify code points with negative numbers. —Ksn 22:58, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Unicode support 

message: Is Rich Text Format an open standard? --Aeon17x 04:22, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'd say it meets the definition of open standard given at the beginning of that page, but does not meet the EU definition given later on that page. By the way, RTF is mentioned on the open format page, but it is not clear to me whether it was saying that RTF is an open format or not.  --Jwwalker 06:52, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It is not a standard (as defined by a standards body), but is defined by a single company.  The text claims patents may be involved, so it isn't free.  I removed the reference to "free text format". --NealMcB (talk) 03:59, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

text: At the Open format page, under the Examples of Open Formats and then under Text, RTF is listed as a free format. Which one is incorrect?--Dbmikus (talk) 03:00, 7 November 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Open standard? 

message: I think the information on human-readability is obsolete. Yes, RTF is still human-readable, but so are most of the other formats in use today (including .doc, .odt and .html). Usually the formats of today are XML-based.
—The preceding unsigned comment was added by AVainio (talk • contribs) .
:It is still important to mention this as the format was designed to be human-readable in an era when that was not the norm, especially for Microsoft.  Would the following be better:
::Unlike most of the word processing formats designed in that era, RTF is human-readable.
:btw, .doc is still a closed binary format.  .docx is the extension for Microsoft Office Open XML, the human-readable replacement. Jayvdb 13:03, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: What other word processing formats are not human readable?  What other word processing format designed in that era were not human readable? SPRINT, Wordstar, RTF.... markup languages were the norm. "Unlike most word processing formats" needs to be justified.203.206.162.148 (talk) 10:59, 11 March 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: There was an early "Wordstar" era and now a modern XML era -- but in between was a period of almost 20 years when the default was to be not human readable... AnonMoos (talk) 00:26, 31 December 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: OK. The early "Wordstar" era overlapped the RTF era. RTF was a product of the mid 1980's, released in 1987. SGML was standardized in 1986. HTML was named in 1991. So human readable formats were still in common use, and were still commonly being designed. Given that RTF was cross-platform and cross-application, how about this: Like all document interchange formats at the time, RTF was designed to be human readable'.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.206.162.148 (talk) 08:18, 7 November 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Not sure what that means -- RFT-DCA was not human-readable, and the native file formats of the majority of late-1980s and 1990s word processors were not human-readable (and the native file formats were what was used for most "document interchange" in businesses at the time).  For that matter RTF is only "human-readable" if there's light formatting and mainly ASCII characters used -- if there's embedded bitmaps or non-Latin text, then it's quite unreadable in a basic text editor... AnonMoos (talk) 10:46, 7 November 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: The document markup formats (SPRINT, Wordstar, HTML, SGML, RTF) from the RTF era were human readable, and the RTF from that era was human-readable too -- it was later versions of Word which generated the massive header blocks which made reading and editing Word RTF so difficult. Why bring the 1990's into it? RTF is the source format of Microsoft Help files. It was replaced by HTML for Compiled Help Files. RTF is exactly part of the SGML, HTML era.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.206.162.148 (talk) 06:02, 12 December 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't know what "SPRINT" is, but SGML was a somewhat esoteric/enterprise product -- mainly used by university scholars and on mainframes at large corporations -- before the rise of HTML, ca. 1993/1994.  Wordstar was already strongly declining by the time that HTML really started to catch on, so I don't understand the expression "Wordstar-HTML era"... AnonMoos (talk) 07:56, 12 December 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: SPRINT was a word processor. SGML was the parent of HTML. Wordstar-SGML-SPRINT-HTML were human-readable word processing formats in use/designed around the time RTF was designed/in use.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.206.162.148 (talk) 05:09, 24 September 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Human-readable 

message: The article should define where the word "Rich" comes from.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.166.80.132 (talk) 17:35, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Rich 

message: I have this recollection that RTF either originated with the (US) Navy, or maybe was used heavily by the navy in the early days.
I can't remember exactly why I think that, but I seem to recall that some of the choices for saving (and opening) documents might have included options with both the word "navy" and the acronym "RTF" in very early versions of MS Word--I probably mean before Word version 3.0.
Can anybody shed any more light on that?-Rhkramer (talk) 18:27, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Data Interchange Format? -- AnonMoos (talk) 08:05, 12 December 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Influence of the Navy? 

message: The character encoding section of the article begins, "RTF is an 8-bit format. That would limit it to ASCII, ...." This is a falsehood, since ASCII is a 7-bit specification, and numerous characters sets, including all the ISO 8859-* sets, use 8-bit codes. Many of them (including the 8859-* sets) coincide with ASCII for the code points < 128, but EBCDIC, for example, doesn't. I don't know what it should say, but I know what it says now is incorrect. Can someone please correct it? —Largo Plazo (talk) 19:15, 1 April 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually, RTF generally avoids including hi-bit (128-255) characters in the file... AnonMoos (talk) 00:29, 31 December 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Falsehood in character encoding section 

message: The page currently says "The intellectual property of the format belongs to Microsoft."  This seems too vague:  are there patents involved?  The Microsoft docs don't seem to mention any.
Dmurdoch (talk) 10:53, 29 October 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Intellectual property 

message: RTF was the source format for the MS Help Compiler - which rendered subscripts and superscripts as hyperlinks and index entries. So all Help files were written in RTF. The HLP format was replaced with Compiled HTML (CHM), which uses HTML as the markup language.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.206.162.148 (talk) 07:26, 27 May 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Microsoft help (HLP) files 

message: The article states:
 Nevertheless, the RTF format is consistent enough from computer to computer to be 
 considered highly portable and moderately acceptable for cross-platform use.[who?] 
Can somebody provide a link to a systematic study?
I have tried several times to deal with documents generated by MS Word 2003, containing complex tables. These files were either saved as DOC or RTF.
I opened these files with OpenOffice3.X using the native OO import filters. Result: the OO import filters work better with binary doc, than with RTF. That is why I am sceptical about the above statement.Oub (talk) 10:04, 11 June 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I think the keywords here are "moderately acceptable" and "complex tables". Tables are notoriously difficult to handle in different applications. Apple's TextEdit lived happily without them for several years, in spite of having RTF as native format. Copying and pasting tables between browsers, Word, and other applications often renders strange results. As the text says "moderately" acceptable, I think it is correct. --Mlewan (talk) 11:13, 11 June 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Original RTF was portable. I could edit the files by hand and easily see what I was doing. Files generated by MS Word 95,97 where much more complex, and I doubt that 2000,2002,2003 got any easier.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.206.162.148 (talk) 06:08, 12 December 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: Interoperability: RTF vs DOC  

message: The article states:
  RTF is an 8-bit format. That would limit it to ASCII
However, ASCII is a 7-bit format. For one, the 8-bit format means a limit to ANSI, but that's still incorrect because being an 8-bit format means you're "restricted" to any of the many 8-bit character encodings used throughout the world. 
The section is ill-written anyway, as it first describes RTF as 8 bit, then says it's not been 8-bit until v1.5, then goes on that most RTF are actually 7-bit. --Mike Kamermans (12 August 2010)  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.121.34.89 (talk) 18:37, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Character Encoding

message: Hi,
I changed the link http://archive.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/e-government/resources/handbook/html/4-3.asp into http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20100807034701/http://archive.cabinetoffice.gov.uk as the former now suggest to refer to the latter. --77.198.58.56 (talk) 14:15, 12 January 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Updated cite link 

message: I removed the following unreferenced claim from the "Criticism" section:
This wasn't an issue for good developers, though, because RTF only has 14 codes, with "\i " being equivalent to HTML's "," with other codes operating more or less as HTML: "\par" for "" and "\tab" for tab.
There is no reference for this claim in the article. I don't think this claim is correct. The RTF specification was published much earlier than any final HTML specification. The RTF 1.0 specification itself defined cca 500 control words. Later versions defined several hundred new control words. RTF is very different from HTML. 
--89.173.65.92 (talk) 14:32, 29 May 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  RTF is equivalent to HTML? 

message: Wikipedia is not here to polish the reputation of Microsoft at the cost of needless historical revisionism. We are not beholden to billionaires Gates, Ballmer, Simonyi or to 'research' funding by Microsoft or IBM or Siemens as are many academics in CS.
To remove the criticism section would be to whitewash the contentious actions and their consequences which are historical fact known to those of us who worked through that period in IT.
There are a great many articles in WP where NPOV is not impaired by a section of criticism and objections and this should be one.
G. Robert Shiplett 13:13, 20 November 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Which is fine, but it currently doesn't cite sources for most of the content. It looks like original research, which is not welcome. -Rushyo Talk 13:19, 25 January 2013 (UTC)
replies: text:  As of today, it cites as well as anything does. The tag claiming it is NPOV is bullshit. The claim that it needs to be merged into the rest of the article is similarly asinine. I have removed that tag. Further, I think the original research tag on this article is wrong as well. Everyone loves to throw these tags around anywhere they don't like something, and they're so rarely justified. Just another way of spreading FUD... 199.19.252.13 (talk) 18:43, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

text:  I don't think the section violates NPOV, but...  it contains criticisms of Microsoft's practices and transparency, not the format itself.  If Microsoft never intended it to be an open standard, then there needs to be some justification as to why their behavior was wrong.  You could make the case that everything Microsoft does creates a standard whether they want it to or not and work from there. - Richfife (talk) 19:26, 3 July 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  In defense of Criticism section 

message: I’ve been writing an RTF reader and writer (RTF 1.6), and I’ve found numerous mistakes in the specification, where some are quite obviously someone getting a control word wrong, as in a typographical mistake, but others need a bit of thinking about and there are definite differences between what say Word 2000 outputs and what the specification says. For examples some control words are logical, where you get two general types, either it is present or missing as one representation of a logical parameter, and then with others you get a numerical value of zero or one after the control word. You are then left wondering what to do. Do you make it Word compatible or do you make it compatible with the specification where these are different? I’ve counted probably a dozen or so instances so far. Out of those there are one or two where the spec. leaves you with ambiguity. This maybe why users find computers misbehaving, say if a writer writes it one way and a reader is expecting something different. The spec is also poorly written in the grammatical sense. Having said that, the system does have its merits, but I feel with all the backward compatibility it can be a bit verbose and more complicated than it would otherwise be. 79.67.241.98 (talk) 05:02, 16 September 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: The spec has plenty of mistakes, though in my experience the developers of other word processors tend to choose "do what MS Word does", and regard the spec (and Microsoft's Office file format specs in general) as fiction with an unreliable narrator. Not sure how we'd go about properly sourcing such an assertion, though - David Gerard (talk) 12:01, 15 November 2014 (UTC)
thread_title: Mistakes in the Specification

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thread_title:  External links modified 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: What are the unstated assumptions here? My understanding is RTF is 100% safe if opened in safe apps such as MS Wordpad or Jarte.  The rare problems seems to be vulnerable (unpatched?  buggy?) programs open to exploits, not .RTF. For examples, these multi-function, "do-all" problematic apps:
 "RTF files can carry malware; sometimes malicious files in RTF format are renamed with the .DOC extension. One exploit attacking a vulnerability was patched in Microsoft Word in April 2015.[53]
 "Since 2014 there have been malware RTF files embedding OpenXML exploits (.DOCX file with ZIP header, renamed with RTF extension) "to create a multi-exploit master key to cover a number of recent patched exploits in one RTF with low AV detection".[54]" 
Say what?  It seems the topic should be patches in Microsoft Word, not problems with RTF.  This is confusing, and needs to be made explicit.  If a program/app attempts to execute code in a simple .RTF, (or .TXT, .JPG, etc..) that is the problem (a serious security bug) of the app, not the file format. (.RTF is safe, .EXE is not, due to how the OS should handle them.)  This should be enunciated, not the quoted implications of format problems.  The assumption seems to be that the app's screw-ups are OK or normal, therefore call RTF in general, unsafe. Please explicitly put blame where due, not just list outside technical problems within an RTF context. Thanks! <BR> --2602:306:CFCE:1EE0:4CFD:EC6D:1B18:1149 (talk) 17:03, 19 May 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: "RTF files can carry malware;"  ??  One can embed pictures and perhaps other binary objects into .RTF files.  Perhaps malware too? However Wordpad does not open them when opening the RTF.  The operator must click on the embedded icon.  If that's what's meant, it's too vague & should be clarified.  It sounds dangerous, but its only an inert container...that is, not safe.  They are not the same. <BR> --2602:306:CFCE:1EE0:4CFD:EC6D:1B18:1149 (talk) 17:27, 19 May 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  RTF is Virus Safe?