Transferring RTF to PC?

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Transferring RTF to PC?

In TextEdit I duplicate a file and save it to my desktop (for some reason my flash drive does not show up in the volume list--maybe because it's PC formatted--so I just drag it to the flash drive). The filename extension added by TextEdit is .RTFD. I thought this stood for "rich text format," that it was a Mac/PC universal format, and that it in fact originated with Microsoft Word. However, when I plug the flash drive into the PC, I see all the files on the flash drive in the volume list, i see the PDF file I created from TextEdit, but I do NOT see the .RTFD file! I plug it into the Mac, and all the files are there, including the .RTFD file. I've long known that RTF files can be funky and unreliable, but is there a way to get formatted text over to the PC?

Mac mini, OS X 10.11

Posted on Feb 6, 2020 10:58 AM

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Answer 1

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VikingOSX

Community+ 2024

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Feb 6, 2020 2:43 PM in response to Timothy Arends1

RTFD (Rich Text Format Directory) is a macOS unique file format that is a bundle, which other than TextEdit, Pages, and the third-party Bean product, is not supported anywhere else, because Windows and Linux do not know how to deal with Apple's bundles and just treat them as folders, not documents.

Your best bet for converting the RTFD into a cross-platform document is by opening the RTFD document with Pages, and then exporting to Word .docx. Now you have something that preserves the RTFD contents, but is openable on Windows, Linux, and Mac. Current versions of MS Word (Win or Mac) can also convert PDF to Word documents, and that would take advantage of TextEdit's export to PDF capability.

TextEdit does not offer saving to Word, or Open Document (ODT) formats. LibreOffice wants nothing to do with RTFD documents, and macOS command-line utility textutil will convert an RTFD to DOCX with only text content, stripping out the attachments.

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Answer 2

Kappy

Level 10

361,837 points

Feb 6, 2020 11:34 AM in response to Timothy Arends1

RTFD essentially translates to Rich Text Format with Attachments. Windows may not recognize such a file so try: Change the extension to .RTF; or, change the extension to .TXT. If your flash drive is formatted MSDOS or FAT, then be sure to use a filename with not more than 8 alphanumeric characters plus not more than a 3 character extension.

I have not had problems reading TextEdit files on a PC.

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Transferring RTF to PC?

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