TurboFiles

RTF to TXT Converter

TurboFiles offers an online RTF to TXT Converter.
Just drop files, we'll handle the rest

RTF

Rich Text Format (RTF) is a document file format developed by Microsoft for cross-platform text encoding and formatting. It preserves text styling, fonts, and layout across different word processing applications, using a plain text-based markup language that represents document structure and visual properties. RTF files can include text, images, and complex formatting while maintaining compatibility with various software platforms.

Advantages

Excellent cross-platform compatibility, human-readable markup, supports rich text formatting, smaller file sizes compared to proprietary formats, and widely supported by multiple word processing applications and text editors.

Disadvantages

Less efficient for complex document layouts, larger file sizes compared to plain text, limited advanced formatting options, slower processing compared to native file formats, and diminishing relevance with modern document standards like DOCX.

Use cases

RTF is widely used in document exchange scenarios where preserving formatting is crucial, such as academic document sharing, professional report writing, and cross-platform document compatibility. Common applications include word processors, document management systems, and legacy software integration where universal document readability is essential.

TXT

A plain text file format (.txt) that stores unformatted, human-readable text using standard character encoding like ASCII or Unicode. It contains pure textual data without any styling, formatting, or embedded objects, making it universally compatible across different operating systems and text editing applications.

Advantages

Extremely lightweight, universally supported, minimal storage requirements, easily readable by humans and machines, compatible across platforms, simple to create and edit, no complex formatting overhead, fast to process.

Disadvantages

No support for rich text formatting, limited visual presentation, cannot embed images or complex objects, lacks advanced styling capabilities, requires additional processing for complex document needs.

Use cases

Plain text files are widely used for configuration settings, programming source code, log files, readme documents, simple note-taking, data exchange between systems, and storing raw textual information. Developers, system administrators, and writers frequently utilize .txt files for lightweight, portable text storage.

Frequently Asked Questions

RTF is a document format that supports rich text formatting, including fonts, colors, and styles, while TXT is a plain text format that stores only raw text characters without any formatting. RTF uses markup tags to represent formatting, whereas TXT contains pure text without any additional encoding or styling information.

Users convert RTF to TXT to remove complex formatting, create universally compatible text files, prepare documents for programming or data processing, reduce file size, and ensure maximum readability across different platforms and applications.

Common conversion scenarios include preparing text for code editors, creating plain text archives, simplifying documents for email transmission, preparing text for screen readers, and creating easily shareable text files that work on any device or operating system.

The conversion from RTF to TXT results in a complete loss of formatting, including fonts, colors, styles, and text alignment. Only the raw text content is preserved, which means visual design elements are completely removed during the conversion process.

Converting from RTF to TXT typically reduces file size by 50-80%, as all formatting markup and styling information is stripped away, leaving only the pure text content. A 100KB RTF file might become a 20-50KB TXT file depending on the original document's complexity.

The primary limitation is the complete loss of formatting, including bold, italic, underline, font styles, colors, and text alignment. Images, tables, and other embedded elements are also removed during the conversion process.

Users should avoid converting RTF to TXT when preserving document formatting is crucial, such as for professional documents, academic papers, design layouts, or any text requiring specific visual presentation.

For users needing to preserve some formatting, consider using formats like HTML, Markdown, or keeping the original RTF. For programming needs, consider using lightweight markup languages that retain some structural information.