Free online RTF to TXT converter

Convert formatted RTF documents to UTF-8 TXT for plain-text applications and imports.

Convert RTF to TXT online - free

.rtf .txt

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How to convert rtf to txt file

August 13, 2026
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A terminal importer, legacy database, or plain-text note system may accept only .txt files while the source document is an .rtf. Converting the file extracts its readable text and removes document formatting that those systems cannot interpret.

What RTF stores

Rich Text Format (RTF) is a Microsoft-developed interchange format for formatted documents. An .rtf file combines text with control markup for fonts, bold and italic text, paragraph settings, lists, tables, hyperlinks, and sometimes pictures or embedded objects.

Microsoft Word, LibreOffice Writer, Apple TextEdit, and many older Windows and document-management applications can open or create RTF files. RTF remains common in cross-application workflows that need basic formatting without using a proprietary Word document format.

What TXT stores

A TXT file contains plain character data rather than document layout. It can contain line endings, tabs, and Unicode characters, but it cannot retain fonts, colors, images, page margins, tables, or clickable hyperlink targets.

TXT works with text editors, command-line utilities, import scripts, source-control systems, and many older applications. Removing RTF markup usually makes the resulting file substantially smaller and easier to process.

Convert the file

To convert without installing software, upload the .rtf file to 101convert.com, select TXT as the output format, start the conversion, and download the resulting .txt file.

In Microsoft Word on Windows, open the RTF document and select File → Save As. Choose Plain Text (*.txt) as the file type, save the file, then select UTF-8 in the text-encoding confirmation dialog when it is available.

In LibreOffice Writer, open the file and select File → Save As. Set the file type to Text (.txt), save it, and choose UTF-8 in the text export options. UTF-8 preserves accented characters, non-Latin scripts, typographic quotation marks, and symbols more reliably than older regional encodings such as Windows-1252.

On macOS, open the document in TextEdit, select Format → Make Plain Text, then use File → Save. Choose Unicode UTF-8 if TextEdit displays an encoding option.

Check the exported text

Formatting is discarded during conversion. Bold, italics, font sizes, colors, page breaks, headers, footers, columns, and page numbering do not remain as formatting instructions.

Tables, forms, and aligned columns need inspection because plain text has no table structure. Applications commonly turn cells into tab-separated or space-separated text, and column alignment can change with the font used to view the TXT file.

Images, drawings, embedded files, and other non-text RTF objects are omitted. Hyperlink wording may remain as visible text, but the underlying URL is not reliably retained.

Open the output in a Unicode-capable text editor and check names, symbols, line breaks, and tab-separated data. If characters appear as replacement symbols or garbled text, export again as UTF-8 and verify that the receiving program is configured to read UTF-8.

RTF vs TXT: format comparison

How the RTF and TXT formats compare on the properties that matter most for this conversion.

Comparison of the RTF and TXT file formats
Property	.RTF Rich Text Format	.TXT Plain Text File
Open standard	Partly open	Yes
Compression	Uncompressed	Uncompressed
Typical file size	Small	Very small
Opens in a web browser	No	Yes, natively
Further editing	Easy	Easy
Metadata support	Basic	None
Plain-text readable	Yes	Yes
Best used for	Editing and post-production	Data exchange
Introduced	1987	—
Developer	Microsoft	—
MIME type	application/rtf	text/plain

Open RTF file Open TXT file

Frequently asked questions

Is the RTF to TXT converter free?

Yes, converting RTF to TXT on 101convert.com is completely free. No registration, email address or installation is required. If you need a higher file size limit or want to convert more files at once, see our plans.

How large can my RTF file be?

You can upload RTF files up to 1000 MB and convert up to 100 files at once in a single batch.

What happens to my uploaded files?

Files are processed automatically and deleted from our servers within a few minutes after conversion. We never view or share your files.

Do I need to install any software to convert RTF to TXT?

No. The RTF to TXT conversion runs entirely online in your browser and works on Windows, Mac, Linux, Android and iPhone.

Did the conversion fail?

In most cases, the cause is an incorrect file format. Please upload a valid RTF file for this RTF to TXT conversion. Occasionally, the issue may be on our side. We analyze recurring conversion failures and disable or fix the converter if we detect a defect.

rtf to tns rtf to w51

Additional formats for
rtf file conversion

Reverse conversion

txt to rtf

Convert to txt from
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