RTF TO TXT conversion is a fast and easy way to get a quick view of the document text. It allows seeing document text without any formatting parameters, such as font, size, style, etc. You may want to convert RTF to text format for archiving purposes, since exclusion of all unnecessary data noticeably reduces the archive size.
Whereas RTF format was designed for interchanging data between MS Word and other word-processing tools, TXT provides "the most true" way to transfer plain text. During the conversion of RTF to TXT all control words and symbols are ignored, and only unformatted text data is processed. TXT doesn't support any layout objects, and there is no way to transfer any graphical objects from RTF to text format.
RTF to TXT conversion can be processed with mapping to a user-specified grid. Different grids result in different output appearance, since all characters are supposed to have the same horizontal and vertical size. Some graphic elements, e.g. tables, are transferred from RTF to TXT quite correctly, however they are still assigned a lower priority than text.
TXT format doesn't support Unicode, so RTF-TXT conversion will preserve ASCII symbols only. The same applies to such textual items as links, hyperlinks, pictures tabs, etc. - they also can't be processed when you convert RTF to text.
Here is the resulting list of RTF to TXT conversion features:
- RTF to TXT conversion outputs plain ASCII text only, losing all text formatting and most graphical objects.
- The original layout is reproduced as closely as possible: objects rendered from RTF to TXT can be mapped to a user-specified grid and to a certain extent preserve paragraphs, alignment, line spacing, etc.
- Embedded pictures can't be transferred from RTF to TXT, however they are replaced with picture (borders depicted with ASCII symbols) and picture tabs.
- RTF-TXT conversion uses ASCII symbols to reproduce lines and tables, providing the best possible appearance.
- There are two ways to reproduce page breaks: through splitting the resulting file split into several files or by using simple printer page-break commands. Page numbers are converted from RTF to TXT without any modifications.
RTF to TXT converters perform the operation standalone, not requiring any text editors or special software like Microsoft Word.
Follow the links to read how to convert RTF format to XML, how to convert RTF to TIFF, or the way PCL converter works.