need to open rtf files in pages

If you have Pages '09 v4.3 in your Applications : iWork '09 folder, use that to open the RTF document, and export to Word doc format. This will preserve hyperlinks when opening the Word .doc file in Pages v5.6.2. If you do have this version of Pages too, then it would provide the best solution for rtf to doc automated conversion with the best output fidelity. I think I already have something written that does this.

If you don't have Pages '09:

1. I suggest that you download and install the free LibreOffice, so that you can open that RTF and then save as DOCX — without losing any hyperlinks from the original RTF.
2. TextEdit is not a word processor, and though it can open an RTF, and then option+File menu : Save As… to DOCX, you may lose some original word processing layout, and definitely will lose hyperlinks — when reopened in Pages v5.6.2.
3. If you use the textutil utility in the Terminal to convert RTF to DOCX, it will strip out the hyperlinks, and leave you with a DOCX containing underlined text. The default output from textutil is foo.docx in the following example.
   textutil -convert docx foo.rtf

TextEdit will open and save in rtf as will many other Apps.

TextEdit is actually quite a powerful Word Processor.

Peter