Rich Text Format Directory

Rich Text Format Directory

Filename extension	.rtfd
Uniform Type Identifier	com.apple.rtfd
Type of format	Word processing document
Container for	RTF and media files

Rich Text Format Directory, also known as RTFD (due to its extension .rtfd), or Rich Text Format with Attachments, is a primary document format of TextEdit, an application native to NeXTSTEP and Mac OS X which has also been ported to other versions of Unix. The file format is based on the Rich Text Format, but can also include "attachments" such as images.

An RTFD file is a bundle, a folder containing files. It contains a Rich Text file called TXT.rtf that contains Rich Text formatting commands, as well as commands for including images or other attachments contained within the bundle. Images used in the document are stored in the bundle in their native formats.

One big advantage with RTFD is that it supports scalable high quality image formats like PDF, so an RTFD file can print with no information loss at large paper sizes. The standard RTF format also supports a number of scalable image meta file formats, but they are not as versatile as PDF.^{[citation needed]}

Compatibility

Mac OS X

Like RTF, RTFD files can be opened on Mac OS X operating system which support bundles. Mac applications that support RTF and RTFD include Apple's TextEdit and Pages, and a third-party free program called Bean. However, Office for Mac and most other document applications on the platform do not support RTFD.

Microsoft Windows

In contrast to RTF, RTFD files cannot be opened properly by applications on Windows, or other non-Mac OS X operating systems, as bundles are currently only supported on Mac OS X.

In Microsoft Windows, RTFD files are displayed as folders. Editing these folders may destroy the data inside the RTFD. In particular editing any of the elements, such as the text file, inside the folder will remove other elements, such as graphics. Any text associated with the RTFD file appears in the Windows folder as an RTF file. However, when the RTF file is edited in a text editor such as WordPad, Notepad or Word, graphics elements are replaced by a text notation showing their inclusion and, when saved, the graphics elements inside the folder are 'lost' when the RTFD file is subsequently opened in Mac OS X.^{[citation needed]} This may be fixed in a future release of Microsoft Word, but the status is unknown at this time, and Microsoft has a commercial disincentive to make these files readable in Windows.^{[citation needed]}

Note that, if the RTFD file is saved as an archive file (.zip, .rar etc.) it can also be "opened" on Windows using WinZip 8.1 as well as WinRar 3.7.1, meaning the user can extract the contents of the .rtfd file (.pdf, .rtf, .jpg, etc.) and then look at each extracted file using its native application (Acrobat, WordPad, Photo Gallery, etc.). However, as previously stated, some of the contents, such as graphics elements, will be lost after editing when the RTFD file is subsequently re-opened in Mac OS X.

Linux

In contrast to RTF, RTFD files cannot be opened properly by applications on non-Mac OS X operating systems, as bundles are currently only supported on Mac OS X.