Rich Text Format

[Altis]

I'm wondering if anyone here regularly (or occasionally) uses .RTF for their document files.

I've lately found it really useful for information documents that are relatively short (~3 pages) with some nice headers and simple formatting. The files are much smaller and faster to load and transfer which is good for what I use them for.

It seems like a pretty decent way to store text if you want something with some formatting options beyond a .TXT file.

What do you like/dislike about it?

[rowdy]

Curiously Apple's TextEdit (default text editor application) defaults to saving as RTF.

However I prefer plain text files, which I can easily edit using a GUI tool or a command line utility.

And at work "Microsoft Word 2010" has been chosen as the company standard.

[UsualSuspectXXX]

I pretty much only use plain text files. I think some of my coworkers kinda hate it, but being a dev, I don't really see the need for anything else.

[Altis]

I'm with you both in my preference for plain text files. They're simply great to work with.

It's when you need a bit more formatting options (for other users, in particular) that RTF can be like the plain text of document files... Small, simple, and easily read by most applications.

I'm just interested to see if others use it and how. I had a professor a few years ago who insisted we use it for submissions, though he didn't give much reason why.

[davkol]

IIRC the implementation isn't consistent across different apps. Either way, I always use extended Markdown and have it converted to HTML or PDF (via LaTeX), when necessary.

[UsualSuspectXXX]

I'm with you both in my preference for plain text files. They're simply great to work with.

It's when you need a bit more formatting options (for other users, in particular) that RTF can be like the plain text of document files... Small, simple, and easily read by most applications.

I'm just interested to see if others use it and how. I had a professor a few years ago who insisted we use it for submissions, though he didn't give much reason why.

I've also had a professor require RTF format... interesting.

[SamirD]

When we had mixed win3.1 and win95 systems, we were using rtfs to save MS Write documents so that both platforms could read it.

Since then we're just using open office and non-xml ms format.  Although I'll save any notes as a good old txt file--best portable format ever.  Even the Commodore 64 can read them!

[Altis]

I'm with you both in my preference for plain text files. They're simply great to work with.

It's when you need a bit more formatting options (for other users, in particular) that RTF can be like the plain text of document files... Small, simple, and easily read by most applications.

I'm just interested to see if others use it and how. I had a professor a few years ago who insisted we use it for submissions, though he didn't give much reason why.

I've also had a professor require RTF format... interesting.

I think the reason he had was to avoid potential viruses as there was no macro-execution in RTF unlike DOC, though file size could also have been a factor.

[vivalarevolución]

I've been saving small files and notes in doc and odt format for years, without realizing how much larger these files are compared to txt or rtf.  Silly me.

[Findecanor]

I have lots and lots of text files for all kinds of purposes.

I try to write new text files in Markdown syntax.
Markdown is actually a codification of several text file conventions that people have been using for several decades, and personally I would have chosen a slightly different syntax for some things.

[BlueNalgene]

I use RTF to collaborate.

The people I work with run a range of systems and a range of skill levels.  The work we need to collaborate on are reports with very specific formatting.  We do this in LaTeX but not everyone is comfortable with that.  RTF is an easy output from most LaTeX editors and can be read by all systems without issue.

[iLLucionist]

I use RST (reStructured Text) and VIM. If necessary and for collaboration, I convert it using docutils (python tool) to html, rtf, pdf, latex, or whatever. I also write e-courses in RST and have sphinx (python doc tool) generate the whole html page for me. So for me, RST is extremely versatile.

I hate really **hate** being reliant on legacy software AND not being able to open what is basically text with some basic formatting in a text editor or in the terminal.

For my work, I've had multiple cases where we simply didn't had the software lying around to open legacy docs. That made me switch to RST for once and for good.

For heavier formatting, I just use LaTeX. But that is too much hassle for your needs I guess.