Convert RTF to TEXT — Free Online Converter
Convert Rich Text Format (.rtf) to Plain Text (.text) online for free. Fast, secure document conversion with no watermarks or registration....
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Upload your .rtf file by dragging it into the upload area or clicking to browse.
Choose your output settings. The default settings work great for most files.
Click Convert and download your .txt file when it's ready.
About RTF to TXT Conversion
RTF stores text content alongside formatting control words in a plain-text file. While RTF is technically text-based, it is not human-readable — the control words (\b, \par, \trowd) make the raw file incomprehensible to anyone not parsing RTF syntax. Converting RTF to plain text (TEXT) strips all control words and formatting, leaving only the readable content — clean, human-readable text without any markup.
The resulting text file contains every word from the RTF document, laid out sequentially with paragraph breaks, but with no fonts, no colors, no tables, no images — just the raw textual content. This is the most thorough format simplification available.
Why Convert RTF to TXT?
Plain text is needed for text processing workflows. Search indexing, NLP analysis, content migration, diff comparison, and programmatic text handling all work with plain text. RTF, despite being text-based, cannot be processed by these tools without first stripping the control words.
Plain text extraction also reveals the actual content of an RTF file without formatting distractions. For content review, word counting, plagiarism detection, and text analysis, stripping formatting to plain text lets you focus entirely on the words.
Common Use Cases
- Extract readable text from RTF files for search indexing
- Feed RTF content into text analysis or NLP pipelines
- Create clean text copies for diff comparison and version control
- Import RTF content into databases or content management systems as raw text
- Perform word counts and content analysis on RTF documents
How It Works
LibreOffice or a dedicated RTF parser reads the control word stream, building a text model by following formatting commands while extracting only the text content. Control groups (\b, \i, \f, \pard) are parsed for structure but only text characters are retained in the output. Paragraph breaks (\par) become newlines. Table cells (\cell) are separated by tab characters. Hex-encoded special characters (\'xx) and Unicode escapes (\uN) are decoded to their UTF-8 representations. All images and non-text content are discarded.
Quality & Performance
Text content is extracted with complete accuracy. Every readable word, number, and symbol from the RTF appears in the output. RTF control words, formatting, images, and structural markup are stripped. Tables become tab-separated rows. Headings (which in RTF are just formatted text) become plain text lines. The output is clean, human-readable text.
Device Compatibility
| Device | RTF | TXT |
|---|---|---|
| Windows PC | Partial | Partial |
| macOS | Partial | Partial |
| iPhone/iPad | Partial | Partial |
| Android | Partial | Partial |
| Linux | Partial | Partial |
| Web Browser | No | No |
Tips for Best Results
- 1Use plain text extraction when you need content for search indexing or text processing
- 2For structured output, convert to HTML instead to preserve headings and links
- 3Check that all special characters decoded correctly — RTF uses hex escapes for non-ASCII characters
- 4Table data in the output uses tab separation and can be imported into spreadsheets
- 5The plain text output is dramatically more readable than the raw RTF file
Related Conversions
RTF to plain text strips formatting control words to reveal clean, readable content. Use it for text processing, search indexing, and content analysis.