Question 1

What opens an RTF file now that WordPad is gone?

Accepted Answer

Microsoft Word opens .rtf files on Windows and on a Mac, and TextEdit opens them on every Mac. Google Docs opens one uploaded to Google Drive, and LibreOffice opens them for free. On a Chromebook or a phone, this page is the quickest way to read one.

Question 2

Why does my RTF file show as a page of code?

Accepted Answer

RTF is plain text with formatting written as commands, so opening it in a text editor or a browser tab shows the commands themselves: {\rtf1, \b, \par and so on. It needs a program, or this page, that reads those commands and shows the result.

Question 3

Why is a picture missing?

Accepted Answer

Older programs saved pictures in RTF files as Windows metafiles, a drawing format browsers cannot display. PNG and JPEG pictures are shown; the page says how many metafile pictures it left out.

Question 4

Will the document look the same as it does in Word?

Accepted Answer

It shows the text and its formatting, not the printed page. Page breaks are marked with a line, headers and footers are left out, and fonts are close matches. For an exact copy of the layout, ask the sender for a PDF.

Question 5

Is the document uploaded anywhere?

Accepted Answer

No. The file is read by this browser tab on your own device, and nothing in it is sent to this site or anywhere else.

Free online RTF viewer: read Rich Text Format files