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by einpoklum 2063 days ago
In what ways is it preferable to ODT (OpenDocument format)?
2 comments
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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