Opening RTF attachments from IPhone Mail app

Do you mean an email that was forwarded as an attachment to the message instead of being forwarded as it should be?

picklesinmyears wrote:
Is there no hope of opening an rtf attachment to an email message in the IPhone Mail app? If not, is anyone aware of Apple's intention to fix this glaring omission?

Nobody here can tell you why Apple chooses what they do.
But the specs clearly said

Viewable document types: .jpg, .tiff, .gif (images); .doc and .docx (Microsoft Word); .htm and .html (web pages); .key (Keynote); .numbers (Numbers); .pages (Pages); .pdf (Preview and Adobe Acrobat); .ppt and .pptx (Microsoft PowerPoint); .txt (text); .vcf (contact information); .xls and .xlsx (Microsoft Excel)

So for reasons only known to them, they opted (not glaring omission) not to support RTF.

Click up top on iPhone.
Then on iPhone ad page, there is Tech Specs
http://www.apple.com/iphone/specs.html

Believe it is in the manual as well.
http://manuals.info.apple.com/enUS/iPhone_UserGuide.pdf
Page 51

Message was edited by: DaVBMan

I'm not sure what you are referring to with a RTF attachment.

Depending on settings, I believe Microsoft email clients can forward a received email as an attachment to the message being sent. When selecting forward for a received message to forward the received message to someone else, the message being forwarded is sent as an attachment with the sent message instead of a true forwarded message. When forwarding a received message, the only thing that should be sent as an attachment with the forwarded message is if an attached file was included with the received message that is being forward - such as a picture, or a PDF file that was included with the received message.

I believe he is referring to a real .RTF file document. A file somebody saved as an RTF trying to be compatible with many people, but yet is not supported by the iPhone.

But I know what you are talking about when it comes to forwarded messages that some email clients send them out as RTF attachment.

Count me as another disappointed user. I've told people for years that if they aren't sure whether someone has a particular word processing program, RTF would work. Imagine my surprise when I receive an RTF attachment on my new iPhone, and I can't read it.

Yes, RTF is not in the list of displayed file formats in the documentation, but why not?! I often create files in plain text in TextEdit on my Mac, but sometimes I use RTF instead of opening a fatter word processor. I'm flabbergasted that the iPhone won't display the RTF files.

It must have been a deliberate choice, but it's still absurd.

And I don't see a way around it. I can't save the file to look at it in some third-party app. Safari won't read it if I forward the attachment to another mail account I can read online.

Does anyone have a way around this?

This really annoyed me, so I complained to Apple but also found a solution that will work for me.

You can forward the mail message to pdf@koolwire.com

They have an automated server that converts DOC documents (but conveniently also RTF) to PDF and sends the PDF file back to the email address it was sent from. It worked fairly instantaneously for me. They have other conversion services as well. But that will get the job done for me especially as I'm not concerned about privacy on these messages.

Visit the Koolwire web site and their rules page:
http://www.koolwire.com/Rules.aspx

In the process of figuring out this, I also found TouchTerm SSH. So now I have a terminal as well. And I discovered that Files Lite will display the RTF files if I could have saved the attachment from the email in a place it could get to them.

Beth,
Thanks for posting the information about koolwire -- you've helped at least one other user. That's what these forums are for, right? not just for complaining.
Please continue.