Rich Text Format - Implementations

Implementations

Each RTF implementation usually implements only some versions or subsets of the RTF specification. Many of the available RTF converters cannot understand all new features in the latest RTF specifications.

The WordPad editor in Microsoft Windows creates RTF files by default. It once defaulted to the Microsoft Word 6.0 file format, but write support for Word documents (.doc) was dropped in a security update. Read support was also dropped in Windows 7. WordPad does not support some RTF features, such as headers and footers. RTF is also the data format for "rich text controls" in MS Windows APIs.

The default text editor for Mac OS X, TextEdit, can also view, edit and save RTF files as well as RTFD files. TextEdit currently (as of July 2009) has limited ability to edit RTF document margins. Much older Mac word processing application programs such as MacWrite and WriteNow were able to view, edit, and save RTF files as well.

The free and open-source word processors AbiWord, OpenOffice.org, KWord, and Bean can view, edit and save RTF files. (Abiword and OpenOffice.org use RTF 1.6 when a new file is saved.) RTF format is also used in Ted word processor. These implementations might be interesting for those who need to learn how to implement RTF support in their project and link it to other application functionality.

SIL International’s Toolbox freeware application for developing and publishing dictionaries uses RTF as its most common form of document output. RTF files produced by Toolbox are designed to be used in Microsoft Word, but can also be used by other RTF-aware word processors.

RTF can be used on some ebook readers because of its interoperability, simplicity, and low CPU processing requirements, and some devices, including BeBook, work best with this format.