If you write in TextEdit on a Mac, or kept files from the old Windows WordPad, you probably have a few .rtf documents lying around. RTF (Rich Text Format) is an old but common format for letters, notes and simple forms, and plenty of apps and systems still save or export it.

Look Scanned could already open RTF files, but only as an experimental format. The whole document came out as one long page, so the page size and page breaks rarely matched the original. We've rebuilt how RTF files are displayed, and the experimental warning is gone.

Proper pages instead of one long page

An RTF file now opens much the way it would print:

  • It uses the paper size saved in the file, such as A4 or US Letter.
  • Long text moves onto the next page by itself, even if nobody added page breaks.
  • Alignment, indents and line spacing are kept.

A multi-page letter now becomes a multi-page scanned PDF, not one long strip.

Tables, lists and images

Tables keep their borders, cell shading and alignment, and a long table can continue onto the next page. Cells merged across a row stay merged.

Numbered and bulleted lists show the correct numbering, including nested levels such as 1.1 and 1.2.

PNG and JPEG images appear where they belong in the text. Some pictures stored in the older Windows WMF or EMF formats now show up too, as long as they hold an ordinary image.

Chinese, Japanese and Korean RTF files saved in older encodings display correctly instead of as garbled characters.

How to turn an RTF file into a scanned PDF

  1. Open RTF to Scanned PDF and select your .rtf file.
  2. Go through the preview page by page. Check the fonts, tables and where each page breaks.
  3. Adjust the scan effect. Keep blur and noise low if the text needs to stay easy to read.
  4. Generate the scanned PDF and download it.

If you'd rather have images, you can export each page as JPG or PNG. Our guide to PDF, JPG and PNG explains the options.

Your RTF file is read and laid out inside your browser. It isn't uploaded to a server for conversion, and Look Scanned uses the fonts already installed on your device.

What still isn't perfect

RTF has been around since 1987, and different apps write it in slightly different ways. A few things are still limited:

  • Headers and footers may be missing or look different.
  • Tables placed inside other tables are simplified.
  • Drawings made of lines and shapes, such as some charts and clip art, show as an empty placeholder.
  • If a font used in the file isn't installed on your device, a similar font takes its place, which can shift lines and page breaks.

If any of this matters for your document, open it in Word, Pages or LibreOffice, save it as a PDF, and then add the scan effect to that PDF in Look Scanned.

Had an RTF file that looked wrong before? Give it another try.