rich text format (file format) (RTF)

The Rich Text Format (RTF) allows ASCII texts to be encoded with control characters. This file format, developed by Microsoft, is suitable for exchanging text between word processing programs while preserving formatting characters.

The text saved in the RTF file format can be reopened with another word processing program and will be the same as the original text. In the RTF file format, markups enclosed in curly brackets are inserted into the text to encode the content with specific commands, to insert special characters, to define the attributes of a paragraph, and to increase the functionality of the RTF file format.

The attributes and functionalities include the hyperlinks, value tables, horizontal lines, bookmarks, change flags, paper formats, the sentence structure, images, the headers and footers and the output. The extension of RTF files is *.rtf.