RTF to TXT
RTF (Rich Text Format) wraps your text in formatting control codes for bold, fonts, colors, and layout. When you only want the words, all that markup is in the way. Converting RTF to TXT strips out every control code and leaves clean, plain text that any program can read — no formatting, no clutter, just the characters. That's exactly what you need to feed content into a script, paste text without formatting, or import into a system that only accepts plain text. FluidConvert removes all the RTF markup and hands back a clean UTF-8 text file. Just know that the formatting — bold, colors, tables, any images — is discarded in the process. FluidConvert does this free, with no account required.
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Accepts: application/rtf, .rtf · Max 1GB · always free
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Simply upload your .RTF file and we'll convert it to .TXT format — fast, free, and secure.
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How to Convert RTF to TXT
Upload Your File
Click the upload area above or drag and drop your .RTF file. We support files up to 1GB, completely free.
Choose Output Format
Select .TXT as your target format. Adjust any conversion settings if needed.
Download Your File
Click Convert Now and wait a few seconds. Once complete, download your converted file instantly.
About RTF to TXT
Last updated: September 2026
What is RTF?
RTF (Rich Text Format) is a document format Microsoft created in 1987 to exchange formatted text between different word processors. An RTF file is actually plain text interwoven with control codes — sequences like \b for bold or \i for italics — that describe fonts, colors, spacing, basic tables, and other formatting. This text-based design made RTF unusually portable, readable by nearly every word processor across platforms. But because the formatting lives inside the file as visible markup, the raw RTF is cluttered with codes that get in the way if you only care about the underlying words. That's why extracting the plain text is a common need.
Why convert to TXT?
Plain text is universal and effortless to process — every editor, terminal, and programming language reads it instantly. You'd convert RTF to TXT when you want just the words without the control codes: to feed content into a script or data pipeline, to paste clean text without any formatting tagging along, to import into a tool that only accepts plain text, or to store the content in the smallest, most future-proof form. TXT also strips away any hidden metadata the RTF carried. The result opens anywhere, weighs almost nothing, and will never become obsolete — plain text is as portable as a file gets.
What to expect from the conversion
This removes all the RTF markup and keeps only the words. Every formatting control code — bold, italics, fonts, colors, sizes — is stripped, leaving flat plain characters. Any images embedded in the RTF are dropped, since TXT can't hold graphics. Tables are flattened: the cell text survives but the grid structure disappears, so columns may run together or break onto separate lines. What remains is the readable text in its correct reading order, encoded as UTF-8 so accented letters and symbols come through intact. The output file is much smaller than the RTF and opens cleanly in any text editor without a single stray control code.
How FluidConvert handles it
FluidConvert parses your RTF file on secure servers, interpreting and removing its formatting control codes to extract the underlying text, then writes it out as a clean UTF-8 plain-text file. Uploads are encrypted in transit and automatically deleted once conversion finishes. The service is free and requires no account.
Common reasons to convert RTF to TXT
- Stripping RTF control codes to get clean text for a script or data-processing pipeline
- Pasting document content somewhere without any bold, fonts, or formatting coming along
- Importing an RTF's text into a system or database that only accepts plain text
- Feeding the words into a text-to-speech engine or search tool that works best with plain text
- Archiving a document's written content in a tiny, universally readable format free of markup
Frequently Asked Questions
Will the output still contain RTF codes like \b or \i?
No. FluidConvert interprets and removes all of RTF's formatting control codes, so the output is genuine plain text with no stray markup. You won't see sequences like \b, \i, or curly braces — just the readable words. This is the whole point of the conversion: turning code-laden RTF into clean text that any program can use directly, without any leftover formatting instructions cluttering the file.
Does any formatting survive as plain text?
No. Plain text holds only characters, so bold, italics, fonts, colors, sizes, and layout are all removed. This is inherent to the TXT format, not a limitation of the conversion. You keep the words in their correct order but lose every bit of visual presentation. If you need to preserve formatting, convert to DOCX instead; RTF-to-TXT exists specifically for when you want the raw text with all the styling stripped away.
What happens to images and tables in the RTF?
Images embedded in the RTF are removed entirely, because plain text files can't contain graphics. Tables are flattened: the text inside each cell is kept, but the grid structure disappears, so cell contents may be separated by spaces, tabs, or line breaks and a complex table can look jumbled. Only the textual content survives the conversion — never the pictures or the visual arrangement of the table.
What encoding does the text file use?
FluidConvert outputs UTF-8, the modern standard supporting virtually every character and language. This ensures accented letters, curly quotes, em dashes, symbols, and non-Latin scripts from your RTF are preserved as real text rather than turning into question marks. UTF-8 is compatible with nearly all software and is the most portable choice, so any special characters in your document remain intact wherever you open the resulting file.
Why would I strip an RTF down to plain text at all?
Because many tasks need the words, not the formatting. Scripts, data pipelines, search tools, and text-to-speech engines all work best with clean plain text. RTF's embedded control codes can trip up software that doesn't understand them, and formatting is unwanted noise when you're processing or reusing content. Converting to TXT gives you a lean, universally readable file that any program can handle without choking on markup or dragging along unwanted styling.