PDF to RTF Converter
Get the words out of a PDF and into Rich Text Format, the editable file that nearly every word processor since the late 1980s can read. Bold, italics, fonts, lists and tables come across without needing a DOCX-capable program.
Document Converter
or drop PDF, DOC, DOCX … files here ·
Max 95 MB per file· Up to 20 files· Deleted after 30 minutes
Files are processed on our servers and deleted after 30 minutes.
150 DPI turns an A4 page into about 1240 × 1754 px. Use 300 for printing.
Convert the whole file or only some pages or slides (PDF and presentation input).
Pages or slides to convert, e.g. 1-3, 5, 8-10.
UTF-8 works for every language. Choose UTF-8 with BOM if Excel or Notepad on Windows shows garbled characters; legacy encodings only for old software.
LF for macOS, Linux and code editors; CRLF for older Windows programs such as classic Notepad.
Comma is standard. Use semicolon for Excel in countries that write decimals with a comma (Germany, France, Brazil).
Excel input with several sheets: convert all of them (one section or file per sheet) or only the first.
How to use this tool
- 1
Choose your PDFs
Drop the files on the upload area or browse for them. You can send 20 at a time, each up to 95 MB; scanned pages are recognized because OCR scanned pages is on.
- 2
Decide how much formatting to keep
Convert to already says RTF. Formatting on Keep all copies fonts, sizes and colors; Simple keeps only headings, lists, bold and tables for a lighter file.
- 3
Download the RTF
Press Convert to RTF. Open the file in TextEdit, Word, LibreOffice Writer or Google Docs and edit it like any other document.
Why pick RTF over DOCX when converting a PDF
Rich Text Format is plain text with formatting commands written into it. Open an .rtf file in a code editor and you see {\rtf1\ansi at the top, then words broken up by control words such as \b for bold and \par for a new paragraph. Any program that can parse those commands can show the document, which is why RTF works in places DOCX does not reach: small editors, form systems in hospitals and law offices, older desktops, and software written before 2007.
That makes RTF the safe middle ground for PDF content. Converting to plain text throws away every heading and bold word; converting to DOCX assumes the reader has a modern Office-compatible program. RTF keeps the visible formatting and asks almost nothing of the receiving software, which matters when you do not know who will open the file next. If the text only needs to be read, not edited, PDF to TXT gives the smallest file.
Where RTF still opens, and where it stopped
1987
Microsoft publishes RTF
Introduced so Word documents could move between programs and platforms as text.
2001
TextEdit ships with Mac OS X
Apple's built-in editor saves new documents as RTF by default, which it still does.
2008
RTF 1.9.1, the last specification
Published alongside Word 2007; Microsoft has not revised the format since.
2024
WordPad leaves Windows
Windows 11 version 24H2 drops WordPad, the free RTF editor Windows had included for decades.
How much of the PDF's formatting survives in RTF
- Text only
Words and paragraph breaks, nothing else. Useful for pasting into a system that strips styling anyway.
- Simple
Headings, lists, bold, italics and tables. Fonts fall back to the reader's default.
- Keep all
Font names, sizes, colors and spacing as close to the PDF as RTF can hold.
Portable Document Format
PDF was created by Adobe in 1993 and became the open ISO 32000 standard in 2008. It fixes text, fonts, images and layout so a document looks the same on every screen and printer. PDFs can contain forms, signatures, links, attachments and searchable text, and the PDF/A variant is used for long-term archiving. The fixed layout makes PDFs hard to edit, and scanned PDFs contain only images unless OCR is applied. Every browser and operating system can open them.
- Compression
- –
- Transparency
- Yes
- Animation
- No
- Introduced
- 1993 · Adobe
RTF
Rich Text Format
RTF is a plain-text markup format that Microsoft introduced in 1987 to move formatted text between word processors. It supports fonts, bold and italic, colours, tables and embedded images, and it can be opened by almost any word processor, including WordPad and TextEdit. It is more portable than DOC but lacks many modern layout features, and documents with images can become very large. Microsoft stopped developing the specification in 2008.
- Compression
- –
- Transparency
- –
- Animation
- –
- Introduced
- 1987 · Microsoft
PDFs go to RTF when the text has to be edited in a program that handles rich text but not DOCX: TextEdit on a Mac, an older word processor, a case-management or dictation system that imports .rtf, or a mail client that pastes it cleanly.
RTF, DOCX or TXT from the same PDF
Rich text, low demands
Formatting travels without needing an Office Open XML reader.
- Opens in TextEdit, Word, Writer, Google Docs
- No macros possible
- Images make files large
Full Word document
The richest editable target, with styles, comments and compact images.
- Smaller with photos
- Best layout fidelity
- Needs a current word processor
Words only
No formatting at all, and the smallest file of the three.
- Opens anywhere
- You choose the encoding
- Tables flatten into lines
PDF to RTF questions answered
Why is my RTF file bigger than the original PDF?
RTF is a text format, so pictures are written out as hexadecimal digits, which takes roughly twice the bytes of the binary image. A PDF with many photos can therefore grow a lot. Turn off Include images if you only need the words.
Does Google Docs open RTF files?
Yes. Upload the .rtf to Google Drive and open it with Google Docs; it converts on import, and Docs can also download a document back as Rich Text Format through File, then Download.
Windows no longer has WordPad. What opens RTF now?
Microsoft removed WordPad from Windows 11 starting with version 24H2. Word, LibreOffice Writer and Google Docs all open RTF, and on a Mac TextEdit opens it with a double-click.
Can RTF files carry macros like Word documents?
No, the format has no place to store VBA macros. RTF files can still embed objects, and attackers have used that in phishing, so treat an unexpected RTF attachment with the same care as any other.
Are tables from the PDF kept as real tables?
Yes. RTF has its own table syntax, so rows and cells detected in the PDF are written as a table you can resize and edit, not as text lined up with spaces. Check tables that had merged cells, since the PDF does not record which cells were merged.
Is RTF the right choice, or should I pick DOCX?
Pick RTF when the receiving program is old, simple or unknown. When the reader uses a current word processor, PDF to Word gives a DOCX with better support for comments, styles and images.
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