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Rich Text Format to PDF converter

RTF to PDF is only as good as our office engine's RTF import, which handled our generated RTF but printed one fixture's control words literally.

  • Converted with Office engine · input deleted within 24 h
  • Free: 5 conversions a day · 5 MB each
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From real runs

What you get — and what changes

  • Readable RTF body Kept

    The generated RTF rendered the migration memo as selectable PDF text with headings and prose.

  • Malformed RTF Changed

    The repository sample RTF exported as visible brace-delimited control text instead of formatted content.

  • Tables Changed

    The generated RTF table rendered, but extracted PDF text listed cells in separated blocks.

  • Lists Kept

    Numbered migration steps remained visible as list items in the PDF export.

  • Footnotes Changed

    The footnote was printed as page text with a marker rather than preserved as an editable note structure.

  • Images Kept

    The generated RTF's embedded image content appeared in the PDF with its caption text.

  • Unicode escapes Changed

    In the bad fixture, Unicode escape sequences such as u8212 appeared as source-like text.

Sample conversions

Generated RTF memo

Input
RTF made from the rich DOCX, including headings, a list, a table, a footnote, and a tiny embedded image.
Output
The API returned a 34 KB, two-page PDF with readable memo text, list items, table values, a footnote, and image caption text.

Fixture RTF with control words

Input
Repository sample.rtf containing Feedback Atlas content represented with visible RTF control syntax.
Output
Our office engine returned HTTP 200 and an 18 KB PDF, but the PDF text began with {\pard and printed RTF control words literally.

A real Rich Text Format → PDF run

We converted our Rich Text Format sample (2 KB) with Office engine on 2026-09-11. It took 482 ms and produced a 18 KB PDF file, 11× larger than the input. The engine raised no warnings.

Input · sample.rtf · 2 KB

RTF with 19 paragraph marks

Paragraphs
19

Output · sample.pdf · 18 KB

PDF 1.6, 1 page, selectable text (LiberationMono), 0 image objects

Version
1.6
Pages
1
Fonts
LiberationMono
Images
0
Text layer
yes

Options and when to change them

filter
Use only when a known our office engine PDF export filter override is required for RTF processing.

Do it yourself

LibreOffice

bash
soffice --headless --convert-to pdf --outdir out input.rtf

Open the PDF if the RTF was generated by another converter, because escaped RTF can print as source text.

Rich Text Format to PDF by API or MCP

The HTTP API and the MCP server run the exact engine this page uses (Office engine); the response carries the same warnings the web converter shows. Check support first with GET /api/v1/pairs?from=rtf&to=pdf.

curl
curl -X POST https://filetypeconverters.com/api/v1/convert \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $FTC_API_KEY" \
  -F "file=@input.rtf" -F "from=rtf" -F "to=pdf" \
  --output output.pdf
API reference

When this is the wrong conversion

  • If you need editable Word cleanup, use /convert/rtf-to-docx rather than freezing the issue into PDF.
  • If your RTF opens as raw braces and backslashes, fix the RTF source before exporting.
  • If the document is a styled web page, /convert/html-to-pdf is a cleaner route than saving HTML as RTF first.

Rich Text Format to PDF questions

Why did my RTF control words appear in the PDF?

Our office engine treated that fixture content as literal text during import. If you see braces, backslashes, or \pard in the output, the RTF source needs cleanup before PDF export.

Does RTF to PDF keep embedded images?

It did for the generated RTF sample. The image appeared with its caption text, but image behavior depends on how the RTF stores the binary data.

Can RTF footnotes survive as PDF footnotes?

They survive visually, not as editable note fields. The PDF contains the marker and note text as page content.

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