RTF
Also known as: rtf file, Rich Text Format, rich text document
RTF (Rich Text Format) is a plain-text document format that encodes basic formatting — bold, italics, fonts, and colors — using readable markup. It opens in almost any word processor on any platform, which makes it a reliable lowest-common-denominator for portable formatted text.
- Stores basic formatting as readable text markup
- Opens in nearly every word processor and OS
- More portable than DOCX, but less efficient for rich layout
Where RTF fits
An .rtf file stores text alongside formatting instructions written as tagged codes, so it is more capable than plain text but simpler than DOCX. Word, Pages, WordPad, TextEdit, and Google Docs all read and write it.
It is the format macOS once defaulted to in TextEdit and is still used when a document needs to open cleanly across very different systems without a proprietary format getting in the way.
RTF and storage
RTF stores its markup as plain text, so a document with images embedded as hex can grow large, but text-only RTF stays modest. For long documents with rich layout, DOCX is usually smaller and more efficient.
RTF is best thought of as an exchange format: use it when compatibility matters more than advanced layout, and convert to PDF when you need a fixed appearance.