Rich Text Format
Rich Text Format (RTF) is a proprietary document file format developed by Microsoft for cross-platform document interchange. It encodes formatted text and graphics for transfer between applications, preserving basic formatting like fonts, colors, and styles. RTF files are widely used for text documents that require more formatting than plain text but less complexity than full word processor formats.
Developers should learn RTF when working with document processing, text editors, or applications that need to export or import formatted text across different platforms or software versions. It is particularly useful for generating reports, creating formatted text in applications without full word processing capabilities, or ensuring compatibility in legacy systems where simple formatting is required.