Convert Rich Text to Plain Text
Free online converter for Rich Text files. Unformatted UTF-8 text. Nothing to install, no watermark, and every file is deleted automatically.
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Upload a Rich Text file to convert it to Plain Text. Up to 3 files at once, 100 MB each.
Free · up to 3 files · 100 MB each · files deleted automatically after 1 hour.
About RTF and TXT
Rich Text .rtf
Rich Text Format: formatted text stored as readable plain text markup. A lowest common denominator that almost every word processor understands.
Good for
- Opens in essentially any word processor, on any platform
- Keeps basic formatting where plain text cannot
- Human-readable if you open it in an editor
Trade-offs
- Much larger than DOCX for the same content
- No modern layout features
- Images balloon the file size
application/rtf
Plain Text .txt
Just characters. No fonts, no sizes, no layout — which is exactly why it will still open, unchanged, in fifty years.
Good for
- Universally readable, now and indefinitely
- Tiny, and works with every text tool ever written
- Nothing hidden — what you see is the whole file
Trade-offs
- No formatting, images or structure whatsoever
- Character encoding must be right or accents break
- Line endings differ between Windows and everything else
text/plain
RTF and TXT side by side
| RTF | TXT | |
|---|---|---|
| Compression | Plain text markup | None |
| Animation | No | No |
| Typically used for | Exchange between unlike word processors | Notes, logs, source data, long-term archives |
What changes when you convert RTF to TXT
Rendered by LibreOffice
The conversion runs through headless LibreOffice — the same engine behind the desktop suite, not a lookalike parser. It handles ordinary documents faithfully. Where it can drift is on the elaborate: a document leaning on fonts the server does not have will have them substituted, and the substitute rarely occupies exactly the same width, so line and page breaks can move. Heavily designed layouts are worth checking against the original.
Comments and tracked changes
Editorial metadata is the first thing to go in a format conversion: comments, tracked changes and revision history rarely have an equivalent in TXT and are generally dropped or flattened into the text. Treat the output as a clean copy of the current state of the document. If the review history matters, keep the RTF alongside it.
Only the words survive
TXT stores characters and nothing else, so fonts, sizes, colours, images, tables and page layout are all dropped. What you get back is the text itself — which is the point when you want the content free of the formatting around it.
Other Rich Text conversions
Other ways to get Plain Text
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