RTF Header

The header has the following syntax:

<header>\rtf <charset> \deff? <fonttbl> <filetbl>? <colortbl>? <stylesheet>? <listtables>? <revtbl>?

Each of the various header tables should appear, if they exist, in the above order. Document properties can occur before and between the header tables. A property must be defined before being referenced. Specifically:

• The style sheet must occur before any style usage.
• The font table must precede any reference to a font.
• The \deff keyword must precede any text without an explicit reference to a font, because it specifies the font to use in such cases.

RTF Version

An entire RTF file is considered a group and must be enclosed in braces. The \rtfN control word must follow the opening brace. The numeric parameter N identifies the major version of the RTF Specification used. The RTF standard described in this RTF Specification, although titled as version 1.6, continues to correspond syntactically to RTF Specification version 1. Therefore, the numeric parameter N for the \rtf control word should still be emitted as 1.

Character Set

After specifying the RTF version, you must declare the character set used in this document. The control word for the character set must precede any plain text or any table control words. The RTF Specification currently supports the following character sets.

Unicode RTF

Word 2000 is a Unicode-enabled application. Text is handled using the 16-bit Unicode character encoding scheme. Expressing this text in RTF requires a new mechanism, because until this release (version 1.6), RTF has only handled 7-bit characters directly and 8-bit characters encoded as hexadecimal. The Unicode mechanism described here can be applied to any RTF destination or body text.

Document Text

Document text should be emitted as ANSI characters. If there are Unicode characters that do not have corresponding ANSI characters, they should be output using the \ucN and \uN keywords.

For example, the text LabΓValue (Unicode characters 0x004c, 0x0061, 0x0062, 0x0393, 0x0056, 0x0061, 0x006c, 0x0075, 0x0065) should be represented as follows (assuming a previous \ucl):

Lab\u915Gvalue

Destination Text

Destination text is defined as any text represented in an RTF destination. A good example is the bookmark name in the \bkmkstart destination.

Any destination containing Unicode characters should be emitted as two destinations within a \upr destination to ensure that old readers can read it properly and that no Unicode character encoding is lost when read with a new reader.

For example, a bookmark name LabΓValue (Unicode characters 0x004c, 0x0061, 0x0062, 0x0393, 0x0056, 0x0061, 0x006c, 0x0075, 0x0065) should be represented as follows:

{\upr{\*\bkmkstart LabGValue}{\*\ud{\*\bkmkstart Lab\u915 Value}}}

The first sub-destination contains only ANSI characters and is the representation that old readers will see. The second sub-destination is a \*\ud destination that contains a second copy of the \bkmkstart destination. This copy can contain Unicode characters and is the representation that Unicode-aware readers must pay attention to, ignoring the ANSI-only version.

Font Table

The \fonttbl control word introduces the font table group. Unique \fN control words define each font available in the document, and are used to reference that font throughout the document. This group has the syntax listed in the following table.

Note   For <fontemb>, either <fontfname> or <data> must be present, although both may be present.

All fonts available to the RTF writer can be included in the font table, even if the document doesn't use all the fonts.

RTF also supports font families, so that applications can attempt to intelligently choose fonts if the exact font is not present on the reading system. RTF uses the following control words to describe the various font families.

If an RTF file uses a default font, the default font number is specified with the \deffN control word, which must precede the font-table group. The RTF writer supplies the default font number used in the creation of the document as the numeric argument N. The RTF reader then translates this number through the font table into the most similar font available on the reader's system.

The following control words specify the character set, alternative font name, pitch of a font in the font table, and non-tagged font name.

If \fprq is specified, the N argument can be one of the following values.

Font Embedding

RTF supports embedded fonts with the \fontemb group located inside a font definition. An embedded font can be specified by a file name, or the actual font data may be located inside the group. If a file name is specified, it is contained in the \fontfile group. The \cpg control word can be used to specify the character set for the file name.

RTF supports TrueType™ and other embedded fonts. The type of the embedded font is described by the following control words.

Code Page Support

A font may have a different character set from the character set of the document. For example, the Symbol font has the same characters in the same positions both on the Macintosh and in Windows. RTF describes this with the \cpg control word, which names the character set used by the font. In addition, file names (used in field instructions and in embedded fonts) may not necessarily be the same as the character set of the document; the \cpg control word can change the character set for these file names as well. However, all RTF documents must still declare a character set (that is, \ansi, \mac, \pc, or \pca) to maintain backward compatibility with earlier RTF readers.

The table below describes valid values for \cpg.

File Table

The \filetbl control word introduces the file table destination. The only time a file table is created in RTF is when the document contains subdocuments. This group defines the files referenced in the document and has the following syntax:

Note   The file name can be any valid alphanumeric string for the named file system, indicating the complete path and file name.

Color Table

The \colortbl control word introduces the color table group, which defines screen colors, character colors, and other color information. This group has the following syntax:

The following are valid control words for this group:

Each definition must be delimited by a semicolon, even if the definition is omitted. If a color definition is omitted, the RTF reader uses its default color. The example below defines the default color table used by Word. The first color is omitted, as shown by the semicolon following the \colortbl control word. The missing definition indicates that color 0 is the ''auto'' color.

{\colortbl;\red0\green0\blue0;\red0\green0\blue255;\red0\green255\blue255;
\red0\green255\blue0;
\red255\green0\blue255;\red255\green0\blue0;\red255\green255\blue0;
\red255\green255\blue255;\red0\green0\blue128;\red0\green128\blue128;
\red0\green128\blue0;\red128\green0\blue128;\red128\green0\blue0;
\red128\green128\blue0;\red128\green128\blue128;\red192\green192\blue192;}

The foreground and background colors use indexes into the color table to define a color. For more information on color setup, see your Windows documentation.

The following example defines a block of text in color (where supported). Note that the cf/cb index is the index of an entry in the color table, which represents a red/green/blue color combination.

{\f1\cb1\cf2 This is colored text. The background is color
1 and the foreground is color 2.}

If the file is translated for software that does not display color, the reader ignores the color table group.

Style Sheet

The \stylesheet control word introduces the style sheet group, which contains definitions and descriptions of the various styles used in the document. All styles in the document's style sheet can be included, even if not all the styles are used. In RTF, a style is a form of shorthand used to specify a set of character, paragraph, or section formatting.

The style-sheet group has the following syntax:

For <style>, both <styledef> and <stylename> are optional; the default is paragraph style 0. Note for <stylename> that Microsoft Word for the Macintosh interprets commas in #PCDATA as separating style synonyms. Also, for <key>, the data must be exactly one character.

The following is an example of an RTF style sheet:

{\stylesheet{\ql \li0\ri0\widctlpar\aspalpha\aspnum\faauto\adjustright\rin0\lin0\itap0
\fs24\lang1033\langfe1033\cgrid\langnp1033\langfenp1033 \snext0 Normal;}
{\*\cs10 \additive Default Paragraph Font;}{\*\cs15 \additive \b\ul\cf6
\sbasedon10 UNDERLINE;}{\s16\qc \li0\ri0\widctlpar\aspalpha\aspnum\faauto
\adjustright\rin0\lin0\itap0 \b\fs24\cf2\lang1033\langfe1033\cgrid\
langnp1033\langfenp1033 \sbasedon0 \snext16 \sautoupd CENTER;}}

and RTF paragraphs to which the styles are applied:

\pard\plain \ql \li0\ri0\widctlpar\aspalpha\aspnum\faauto\outlinelevel0\
adjustright\rin0\lin0\itap0 \fs24
\lang1033\langfe1033\cgrid\langnp1033\langfenp1033
{This is the Normal Style
\par }\pard \ql \li0\ri0\widctlpar\aspalpha\aspnum\faauto
\adjustright\rin0\lin0\itap0 {\par }\pard\plain \s16\qc
\li0\ri0\widctlpar\aspalpha\aspnum\faauto\outlinelevel0
\adjustright\rin0\lin0\itap0 \b\fs24\cf2\lang1033\langfe1033\cgrid
\langnp1033\langfenp1033
{This is a centered paragraph with blue, bold font.  I call the style CENTER.\par }
\pard\plain \ql \li0\ri0\widctlpar\aspalpha\aspnum\faauto\adjustright
\rin0\lin0\itap0 \fs24\lang1033\langfe1033\cgrid\langnp1033\langfenp1033
{\par The word \'93}{\cs15\b\ul\cf6 style}
{\'94 is red and underlined.  I used a style I called UNDERLINE.\par }

Some of the control words in this example are discussed in later sections. In the example, note that the properties of the style were emitted following the application of the style. This was done for two reasons: (1) to allow RTF readers that don't support styles to still retain all formatting; and, (2) to allow the additive model for styles, where additional property changes are "added" on top of the defined style. Some RTF readers may not "apply" a style upon only encountering the style number without the accompanying formatting information because of this.

List Table

Word 97 and 2000 store bullets and numbering information very differently from earlier versions of Word. In Word 6.0, for example, number formatting data is stored individually with each paragraph. From Word 97 onwards, however, all the formatting information is stored in a pair of document-wide list tables that act as a style sheet, and each individual paragraph stores only an index to one of the tables, like a style index.

There are two list tables in Word: the List table (destination \listtable), and the List Override table (destination \listoverridetable).

The first table Word stores is the List table. A List table is a list of lists (destination \list). Each list contains a number of list properties that pertain to the entire list, and a list of levels (destination \listlevel), each of which contains properties that pertain only to that level.

The syntax for the list table is the following:

Top-Level List Properties

While Word 97 emitted simple or multilevel lists (not simple), Word 2000 emits hybrid lists, which are essentially collections of simple lists. The main difference between Word 2000 hybrid lists and Word 97 multilevel ones is that each level of a hybrid list has a unique identifier.

List Levels

Each list consists of either one or nine list levels depending upon whether the \listsimple flag is set. Each list level contains a number of properties that specify the formatting for that level, such as the start-at value, the text string surrounding the number, its justification and indents, and so on.

{\levelnumbers \'01\'03\'05}

In addition to all of these properties, each list level can contain any character properties (all of which affect all text for that level) and any combination of three paragraph properties: left indents, first line left indents, and tabs—each of which must be of a special type: jclisttab. These paragraph properties will be automatically applied to any paragraph in the list.

List Override table

The List Override table is a list of list overrides (destination \listoverride). Each list override contains the listid of one of the lists in the List table, as well as a list of any properties it chooses to override. Each paragraph will contain a list override index (keyword ls) which is a 1-based index into this table. Most list overrides don't override any properties—instead, they provide a level of indirection to a list. The two types of list overrides are, in general: (1) formatting overrides, which allow a paragraph to be part of a list, are numbered together with the other members of the list, but have different formatting properties; and (2) start-at overrides, which allow a paragraph to share the formatting properties of a list, but have a different start-at values. The first element in the document with each list override index takes the start-at value that the list override specifies as its value, while each subsequent element is assigned the number succeeding the previous element of the list.

List overrides have a few top-level keywords, including a \listoverridecount, which contains a count of the number of levels whose format is overridden. This \listoverridecount should always be either 1 or 9, depending upon whether the list to be overridden is simple or hybrid/multilevel. All of the actual override information is stored within a list of list override levels (destination \lfolevel).

List override level

Each list override level contains flags to specify whether the formatting or start-at values are being overridden for each level. If the format flag (listoverrideformat) is given, the lfolevel should also contain a list level (listlevel). If the start-at flag (listoverridestartat) is given, a start-at value must be provided. If the start-at is overridden but the format is not, then a levelstartat should be provided in the lfolevel itself. If both start-at and format are overridden, put the levelstartat inside the listlevel contained in the lfolevel.

Track Changes (Revision Marks)

This table allows tracking of multiple authors and reviewers of a document, and is used in conjunction with the character properties for tracking changes (using revision marks).

CurrentAuthor\'00\'<length of previous author's name>PreviousAuthor\'00
PreviousRevisionTime

All time references for revision marks use the following bit field structure, DTTM.