RTF is about the closest thing to a universally recognized rich text  
format.  Virtually every word processor reads and writes it, and there  
are libraries for most programming languages available.  Mac OS X uses  
RTF as its primary rich text format - it's what's generated by  
TextEdit, and Cocoa has an API for using it.

It's very well documented, though I think that there are few complete  
implementations. Format specification is here:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/ 
dnrtfspec/html/rtfspec.asp

-- Duane

On Dec 16, 2003, at 9:04 AM, goran.krampe at bluefish.se wrote:

> Ned Konz <ned at squeakland.org> wrote:
>> For the second, someone has to write an RTF reader. Which would  
>> require t=
>> hat:
>>    * the format be documented somewhere (being a Microsoft format,  
>> I'm not=
>> =20
>> sure that it is)
>
> It is actually kinda well documented for being an MS format (just  
> google
> it). So it is not an impossible feat. But before embarking on it I  
> would
> personally check if there is some other format that gives more "bang  
> for
> the buck".
>
> regards, Göran
>