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by vram22 2064 days ago
I don't have an opinion on how good a format RTF is, but I kind of like it.

As part of a Java project (a while ago), I studied the RTF format, partly by reading the spec, and partly through reverse engineering - by creating multiple incrementally larger RTF docs, starting from zero content, then adding a word, then a font style, then a paragraph, a table, etc. And after each addition, opened the RTF in a hex editor and viewed the content, to help decipher the format rules. Then wrote a small RTF generation library in Java, that we used in the project to programmatically generate reports from DB data fetched via EJB. I also provided some ability to vary content and style independently. Good fun.
2 comments
cpach 2063 days ago
Just out of curiosity, why the hex editor? Isn’t RTF just ASCII?
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vram22 2063 days ago
You are right, it is just ASCII text. Probably a brain fart there, sorry. I may have said that (hex editor) out of sheer habit of using one to inspect various formats. Or I may have used a text editor, if so TextPad, IIRC, since the project was on Windows (at least dev env was). It was years ago, so not sure.
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cpach 2063 days ago
Aight :)
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einpoklum 2063 days ago
In what ways is it preferable to ODT (OpenDocument format)?
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vram22 2063 days ago
sidpatil answered (sibling comment). The RTF spec was freely available (on MS's site and/or MSDN CDs then) and should still be around, at least on some sites, since RTF is still used a lot as an exchange format between word processors and even other software. So you can read the spec; it is straightforward.

RTF is to Word like CSV is to Excel. In fact, we generated RTF because the output was to be input to Adobe InDesign.

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sidpatil 2063 days ago
RTF is a much simpler format than ODT. RTF source code resembles TeX at first glance; ODT is based on XML.

Unfortunately, it's not an open standard AFAICT.

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ternaryoperator 2063 days ago
It's not a standard in the sense of an ISO-style organization approval, but RTF has been thorougly documented by Microsoft for a very long time. [0]

[0] https://interoperability.blob.core.windows.net/files/Archive...

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vram22 2063 days ago
Right, I think it still may be a de facto standard from MS. It was so then.
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