What is a RTF file?
Introduced and documented by Microsoft, the Rich Text Format (RTF) represents a method of encoding formatted text and graphics for use within applications. The format facilitates cross-platform document exchange with other Microsoft Products, thus serving the purpose of interoperability. This capability makes it a standard of data transfer between word processing software and, hence, contents can be transferred from one operating system to another without losing document formatting. The file format specifications are available by Microsoft for public download and can be referred to from developer’s perspective.
Brief History
RTF file format has underwent several revisions since its publication. Its official version for read/write was published as part of Microsoft Word 3.0 for Macintosh with version 1.0 specifications. The final version of specifications, 1.9.1 was published by Microsoft in Mar 2008. No more enhancements to the specifications are made after this. At present, almost all operating systems have more feature rich applications that have minimized/eradicated the use of RTF file format.
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File Format Specifications
RTF serves as a standard of data transfer between word processing software and transfer of content from one operating system to another. This is achieved using control words that were introduced by Microsoft Office Word up through 2007. A standard RTF file consists of ASCII to represent rich text and with non-ASCII characters that is converted to appropriate code values. Newer versions of Word can read RTF files generated with previous versions, while the older versions ignore control words and groups they don’t understand.
Understanding the Foundations
RTF files use 7-bit ASCII plain text, consisting of:
- control words
- control symbols, and
- groups.
These act as the building blocks for representation of RTF data as understandable text and character encoding.
Control Word
These represent specially formatted command used to mark characters for display and can not be longer than 32 letters. A control word is defined by:
<ASCII Letter Sequence>//<//Delimiter//>//
Each control word is case sensitive and starts with a backslash. The ASCII Letter Sequence can contain ASCII Alphabets (a through z and A through Z). The marks the end of the control word’s name and can be one of the following:
- A space. This serves only to delimit a control word and is ignored in subsequent processing.
- A numeric digit or an ASCII minus sign , which indicates that a numeric parameter is associated with the control word. The subsequent digital sequence is then delimited by any character other than an ASCII digit (commonly another control word that begins with a backslash). The parameter can be a positive or negative decimal number. The range of the values for the number is nominally –32768 through 32767, i.e., a signed 16-bit integer. A small number of control words take values in the range −2,147,483,648 to 2,147,483,647 (32-bit signed integer). These control words include binN, revdttmN//, rsidN related control words and some picture properties like bliptagN. Here N stands for the numeric parameter. An RTF parser must allow for up to 10 digits optionally preceded by a minus sign. If the delimiter is a space, it is discarded, that is, it’s not included in subsequent processing.
- Any character other than a letter or a digit. In this case, the delimiting character terminates the control word and is not part of the control word. Such as a backslash “”, which means a new control word or a control symbol follows.
Control Symbol
A Control Symbol represents a special occurrence that has specific meaning depending upon its contents. It consists of a backslash followed by a special character (non-alphabetical character) and don’t have any delimiters.
Group
A group can consist of text, control words, or control symbols enclosed in braces ({ }). The opening brace ({ ) indicates the start of the group and the closing brace ( }) indicates the end of the group. Each group specifies the text affected by the group and the different attributes of that text.
RTF File Structure
An RTF file has the following Standard syntax:
Introduced and documented by Microsoft, the Rich Text Format (RTF) represents a method of encoding formatted text and graphics for use within applications. The format facilitates cross-platform document exchange with other Microsoft Products, thus serving the purpose of interoperability. This capability makes it a standard of data transfer between word processing software and, hence, contents can be transferred from one operating system to another without losing document formatting. The file format specifications are available by Microsoft for public download and can be referred to from developer’s perspective.
Brief History
RTF file format has underwent several revisions since its publication. Its official version for read/write was published as part of Microsoft Word 3.0 for Macintosh with version 1.0 specifications. The final version of specifications, 1.9.1 was published by Microsoft in Mar 2008. No more enhancements to the specifications are made after this. At present, almost all operating systems have more feature rich applications that have minimized/eradicated the use of RTF file format.
File Format Specifications
RTF serves as a standard of data transfer between word processing software and transfer of content from one operating system to another. This is achieved using control words that were introduced by Microsoft Office Word up through 2007. A standard RTF file consists of ASCII to represent rich text and with non-ASCII characters that is converted to appropriate code values. Newer versions of Word can read RTF files generated with previous versions, while the older versions ignore control words and groups they don’t understand.
Understanding the Foundations
RTF files use 7-bit ASCII plain text, consisting of:
- control words
- control symbols, and
- groups.
These act as the building blocks for representation of RTF data as understandable text and character encoding.
Control Word
These represent specially formatted command used to mark characters for display and can not be longer than 32 letters. A control word is defined by:
<ASCII Letter Sequence>//<//Delimiter//>//
Each control word is case sensitive and starts with a backslash. The ASCII Letter Sequence can contain ASCII Alphabets (a through z and A through Z). The marks the end of the control word’s name and can be one of the following:
- A space. This serves only to delimit a control word and is ignored in subsequent processing.
- A numeric digit or an ASCII minus sign (-), which indicates that a numeric parameter is associated with the control word. The subsequent digital sequence is then delimited by any character other than an ASCII digit (commonly another control word that begins with a backslash). The parameter can be a positive or negative decimal number. The range of the values for the number is nominally –32768 through 32767, i.e., a signed 16-bit integer. A small number of control words take values in the range −2,147,483,648 to 2,147,483,647 (32-bit signed integer). These control words include binN//, revdttmN, rsidN related control words and some picture properties like bliptagN. Here N stands for the numeric parameter. An RTF parser must allow for up to 10 digits optionally preceded by a minus sign. If the delimiter is a space, it is discarded, that is, it’s not included in subsequent processing.
- Any character other than a letter or a digit. In this case, the delimiting character terminates the control word and is not part of the control word. Such as a backslash “”, which means a new control word or a control symbol follows.
Control Symbol
A Control Symbol represents a special occurrence that has specific meaning depending upon its contents. It consists of a backslash followed by a special character (non-alphabetical character) and don’t have any delimiters.
Group
A group can consist of text, control words, or control symbols enclosed in braces ({ }). The opening brace ({ ) indicates the start of the group and the closing brace ( }) indicates the end of the group. Each group specifies the text affected by the group and the different attributes of that text.
RTF File Structure
An RTF file has the following Standard syntax:
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| <File> | {<header><document>} |
By standard, we mean that any RTF reader must be able to correctly read the RTF written to this syntax, provided that they should be able to ignore the unknown or unused control words. This also implies that the RTF readers should be robust enough to handle some variations that are generated by RTF writers without conforming to this syntax.
RTF Header
An RTF Header has the following representation.
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| <header> | rtf1fbidis? <character set> <from>? <deffont> <deflang> <fonttbl>? <filetbl>? <colortbl>? <stylesheet>? <stylerestrictions>? <listtables>? <revtbl>? <rsidtable>? <mathprops>? <generator>? |
Header tables must appear in this order if they exist. The RTF file can include groups for fonts, styles, screen color, pictures, footnotes, comments (annotations), headers and footers, summary information, fields, bookmarks, document-, section-, paragraph- and character-formatting properties, mathematics, images, and objects. If the font, file, style, color, revision mark, and summary-information groups and document-formatting properties are included in the file, they must appear in the RTF header, which precedes the RTF body. If the content of any group is not used, the group can be omitted. Any group that uses the properties defined in another group must appear after the group that defines those properties. For example, colour and font properties must precede the style group.
RTF Version
An RTF document must start out with these six characters:
where the 1 shows the RTF version number.
Character Set
After the {rtf1, the document should declare what character set it uses. The way to declare a character set is with one of these commands:
ansi - The document is in the ANSI character set, also known as Code Page 1252, the usual MSWindows character set.
mac - The document is in the MacAscii character set, the usual character set under old (pre-10) versions of Mac OS.
pc - The document is in DOS Code Page 437, the default character set for MS-DOS. Typists with good muscle-memory will note that this is the character set that is still used for interpreting “Alt numeric” codes—i.e., when you hold down Alt and type “130” on the numeric keypad, it produces a é, because character 130 in CP437 is an é. That is about the only use that CP437 sees these days.
pca - The document is in DOS Code Page 850, also known as the MS-DOS Multilingual Code Page.
Font Command
The Character set definition is followed by the deffN command. This defines that the font number N is the default font for this document. The font number N is referred from the font table. The command deffN is technically optional, but it should be there to be on the safe side as a common prolog like following picks font 0 as the default font.
{rtf1ansideff0
Font Table
All the fonts that can be used in a document are listed in a font table where each font is represented by a font number. Document must have a font table though some programs will work without that as well.
The syntax for a font table is {fonttbl //…declarations//…}, in which each declaration has this basic syntax:
{fnumberfamilycommand Fontname;}
A font table with four declarations is as follow:
In a document with that font table, {f2 stuff} would print “stuff” in Courier New. A font can’t be used in a document until it is listed in the font table.
End of Document
Every RTF document must end with a }, to close the group opened by the { that is the first character in the document. Nothing can follow the final }, except possibly a newline.
References
-->There are settings in Outlook, Outlook on the web, and Exchange Online that control the format of email messages and how they are sent to people on other domains. The default settings work in most cases. If specific recipients have trouble reading messages sent from your organization, you can adjust the settings for individual users, or for all users on a specific domain. For example, you can prevent recipients from receiving a winmail.dat attachment.
There are two types of settings you can use:
Set Microsoft Word As Default For Rtf On Mac Laptop
Message format: When a user creates a message, they can choose the message format in which to author the message. In Outlook, they have a choice between plain text, HTML, and rich-text format. In Outlook on the web (formerly known as Outlook Web App) they have a choice between plain text and HTML.
Message transmission: This means how the message is actually sent to the other email system. Exchange can send messages to other domains by using Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME) or Transport Neutral Encapsulation Format (TNEF). All three message formats can be sent using TNEF. Only HTML and plain text can be sent using MIME. Message transmission format can be set by an admin per domain or per recipient, and users can also specify message transmission format.
Message formats
The following list describes the three message formats available in Exchange Online, and shows which ones are available in Outlook and Outlook on the web:
| Format | Description | Available in Outlook | Available in Outlook on the web |
|---|---|---|---|
| Plain text | A plain text message uses only US-ASCII text as described in RFC 2822. The message can't contain different fonts or other text formatting. | Yes | Yes |
| HTML | An HTML message supports text formatting, background images, tables, bullet points, and other graphical elements. | Yes | Yes |
| Rich text format (RTF) | RTF supports text formatting and other graphical elements. Only Outlook, Outlook on the web, and a few other MAPI email clients understand RTF messages. | Yes | Can read messages formatted in RTF, but can't format or send this format |
Message transmission formats for mail sent to external recipients
The following table describes the message transmission formats that Exchange Online uses to send email messages to external recipients.
| Transmission format | Description |
|---|---|
| Transport Neutral Encapsulation Format (TNEF) | TNEF is a Microsoft-specific format for transmitting formatted email messages. A TNEF message contains a plain text version of the message and an attachment that packages the original formatted version of the message. Typically, this attachment is named Winmail.dat. The Winmail.dat attachment includes formatting, attachments, and Outlook-specific features such as meeting requests. An email client that fully understands TNEF, such as Outlook, processes the Winmail.dat attachment and displays the original message content without ever displaying the Winmail.dat attachment. An email client that doesn't understand TNEF may present a TNEF message in any of the following ways: The plain text version of the message is displayed, and the message contains an attachment named Winmail.dat, Win.dat, or some other generic name such as Att_nnnnn_.dat or Att_nnnnn_.eml where the nnnnn placeholder represents a random number. The plain text version of the message is displayed. The TNEF attachment is ignored or removed. The result is a plain text message. There are third-party utilities that can help convert Winmail.dat attachments. |
| Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME) | MIME is an internet standard that supports text in character sets other than ASCII, non-text attachments, message bodies with multiple parts, and header information in non-ASCII character sets. |
Message format and transmission settings
Admins and users can control message formatting and transmission. Admin settings override user settings.
Admins can control the following settings:
Remote domain settings: Remote domain settings control the format of messages sent to people on the remote domain. You can control the format for a specific external domain, or for all external domains. For more information about remote domains, see Remote domains in Exchange Online. The remote domain settings override the per-user settings set by admins or users.
Mail user and mail contact settings: You can change settings for individual recipients by changing settings for specific mail users or mail contacts. Mail users and mail contacts are similar because both have external email addresses and contain information about people outside the Exchange Online organization. The main difference is mail users have user IDs that can be used to sign in to the Exchange Online organization. When an admin changes a per-recipient setting, it overrides settings that a user sets for that recipient. For more information about the admin settings, see Manage mail users and Manage mail contacts.
Users can control the following settings:
Set Microsoft Word As Default For Rtf On Mac Os
Outlook settings: In Outlook, you can set the message formatting and encoding options described in the following list:
Message format: You can set the default message format for all messages. You can override the default message format as you compose a specific message.
Internet message format: You can control whether TNEF messages are sent to remote recipients or whether they are first converted to a more compatible format. You can also specify various message encoding options for messages sent to remote recipients. These settings don't apply to messages sent to recipients in the Exchange Online organization.
Internet recipient message format: You can control whether TNEF messages are sent to specific recipients or whether they are first converted to a more compatible format. You can set the options for specific contacts in your Contacts folder, and you can override these options for a specific recipient in the To, Cc, or Bcc fields as you compose a message. These options aren't available for recipients in the Exchange Online organization.
Internet recipient message encoding options: You can control the MIME or plain text encoding options for specific contacts in your Contacts folder, and you can override these options for a specific recipient in the To, Cc, or Bcc fields as you compose a message. These options aren't available for recipients in the Exchange Online organization.
International options: You can control the character sets used in messages.
For more information about Outlook settings, see Change the message format in Outlook.
Outlook on the web settings: You can set the default message format for all messages. You can override the default message format as you compose a specific message.