Rich Text Format (RTF)

A document file format.

The simplest format for a text document is 'plain-text'. This document will only contain pure text with no hidden formatting code. Any text editor can open text files.

The next up in complexity is Rich-Text format. An RTF document not only contains the text but also hidden formatting codes that describe how the text is to appear - bold/italic, font details, justification and so on.

For example if you viewed the hidden codes, a line might look like this

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

All the bits with slashes are formatting codes.

The nice thing about RTF is that it is a public standard owned by Microsoft, so anyone creating a text editor can develop their software to read RTF formatted files.