The .RTF file extension stands for rich text format files. This is one of the most common file types and is easily recognizable by most of the word processors. Initially the file type was a proprietary version till the year of 2008.

Initially developed by programmers at Microsoft labs, the RTF format is based on TEX language for typesetting. Originally, the rich text format files were first read by the text editors that were shipped with the Macintosh machines from Microsoft. Even till today, the maintenance activities for the RTF format are carried out by Microsoft.