Question for Simon: Future of 'RTF'?

[Dick Keaton]

Simon,

It is my understanding that MS has either dropped, or is planning to
drop, continued support for 'RTF'. Maybe you have a better source of
information than I do and can confirm or deny this; but I'm curious -
if this is true, do you anticipate any future change in the format of
internal yWriter files? I'm mostly curious about this because of the
implications for those of us who use 'external' editors or 'RTF'
editors on other platforms.

Any thoughts you would care to share would be much appreciated. I'm
also very curious about any plans you have for a version 6.

Whatever your plans are, you still (at least in my opinion) have given
your flock the finest fiction writing application available at any
price, and I thank you again for that.

Dick Keaton

[Dave Shaw]

Dick,

Where did you get the info about MS dropping RTF? I've searched fairly
extensively and can't find any announcements to that effect. I know Office 2010
supports it. They would have to pull it out of a lot of their products,
starting with Office and including WordPad and Visual Studio, to get rid of it.
I'm very curious as to your source.

Thanks,
Dave Shaw

[Carl Maniglia]

There is a reference in wikipedia:

"Microsoft holds the rights to the RTF format and maintains the
format. As of March 2008[update], the current version is 1.9.1.
According to Microsoft's Office 2010 resource kit documentation,
Microsoft is discontinuing enhancements to the RTF specification.
Further, some new features in Word 2010 and later versions will not
save properly to the RTF format."

But this doesn't mean MS are withdrawing support, just that it will no
longer be enhanced.

Carl

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Regards

Carl

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[Dave Shaw]

Carl,

Exactly. Stabilizing the spec doesn't mean there's any imminent danger that MS
Word, for example, will stop being able to open and save RTF files. Heck, they
still support WordPerfect 5.x.

[Dick Keaton]

Gents,

I guess the real 'key' here is what exactly is meant by 'support', and
to tell you the truth, I don't know. However, I can tell you that my
'source' is very close to Microsoft and has been reliable in the past.
As I recall, some of you are long-time IT types (my sympathies) - I am
too; so I'm not usually given to over reaction when this type of info
surfaces. However, I did think it was a question worth asking Simon.
Who knows what MS will do next, and who knows what other software
providers will do as a result?

It sounds like all of you have seen the following snippet, but I'll
paste it in anyway. It looks like the trend in the future for a
portable format will be toward XML, or some variant.

********

Future Format Concerns

Microsoft's documentation for the release of Office 2010 says that
future enhancements to the RTF format are not currently planned; there
are features of Office 2010 that will not save properly in RTF. In
large part, this is because Microsoft is moving away from binary
formats to XML-based formats; this transition began with Office 2007.
XML-based formats can be fixed with notepad or another text editor if
they get corrupted, while corrupted RTF files are, at best, only
partially salvageable. Open Office, Word 2007 and Word 2010 all use
XML-based formats natively.

********

I hope this helps to clarify my concern, and the reason for my
original question for Simon. Thanks for your comments; they help keep
this discussion forum on the straight and narrow.

Dick Keaton

[Tristan Bendixen]

After reading that snippet, I'm no longer worried about the future support for RTF files. After all, if the format will no longer change, then Microsoft won't need to spend any resources keeping up-to-date with it.

As someone mentioned in an earlier response, MS Office still supports the oldest Wordperfect formats, and there's absolutely no reason to think that this will change in a near future.

Just thought I'd share my thoughts on the subject.

- Tristan

[Carl Maniglia]

I think that Dick is quite right to raise concerns. But RTF has become an industry standard and is supported by every Word Processor that I have tried and can be properly called a Word processor as well as an equal number of text crunchers I've used, seen or tried. Microsoft have done this sort of thing in the past and ended up with their pants around their pants around their ankles.

I can see why MS would want to take the easy path and might consider that it would make their life simpler by pulling the plug on something that no longer fitted into their new philosophy. Look at how long they resisted the introduction of xml based file formats and how much cash they spent doing so. When they couldn't hold out any longer they then tried to impose their own version of the XML ODF. MS are keen to create closed environments with Office as it is the great cash cow for them and look for any means that ties users to Office and keeps users away from the competition.

But MS get it wrong with a frequency that almost becomes laughable - take a look at Windows 8 for example..

Regards

Carl

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