The Rich Text Format (often abbreviated to RTF) is a document file format that has been continually developed by Microsoft since 1987 for Cross-platform document interchange. Most word processors are able to read and write RTF documents. Unlike most of the word processing formats, RTF is human-readable.

=Sample RTF document=

As an example, the following RTF code:

{ tf Hello!par This is some { bold} text.par }

would be rendered like this when read by an appropriate word processor:

Hello! This is some bold text.

A backslash () starts an RTF control code . The par control code indicates a new line, and  switches to a bold typeface. Brackets ({ and }) define a group ; the example uses a group to limit the scope of the  control code. Everything else will be treated as clear text , or the text to be formatted. A valid RTF document is a group starting with the tf control code.

Detailed examples can also be found at [http://www.pindari.com/rtf1.html here] along with sample files which show basic application of RTF codes together with use of fonts, tabs and tables.

=Character encoding=

RTF is a 7-bit format. That would limit it to are present, the sequence c8 will encode the Arabic letter beh (). In a Unicode escape, the character u followed by a Unicode codepoint number in decimal will specify the character, e.g. u1576 for Arabic letter beh.

=Common implementations=

The RTF format is the default rich text format for Mac OS X s default editor TextEdit. The WordPad editor at one point created RTF files by default. Though it still can view and edit RTF files, it now uses the Microsoft Word file format by default. The open-source editor AbiWord, which is common on Unix-like platforms that implement the X Window System and GTK, can also edit RTF files. These different programs do not however create files that are completely compatible with each other. Since RTF is supported natively by the Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X operating systems, it is very easy for developers targeting these platforms to integrate RTF display and editing capabilities into their applications.

=See also=

*List of document markup languages *Comparison of document markup languages

=External links=