How to I tell what version of the RTF spec MS Word is using?

[Paul12345671]

Hello,
I have been having terrible trouble processing an RTF document produced by MS Word via the 'Save As' option (processing is done using library code - not my code). I have (eventually) discovered that the reason is that Word has been using a later version of the RTF specification. I was hoping that someone might be able to tell me:
- How do I determine the RTF specification being used by Word? and
- Am I able to change this to an earlier version of the RTF spec? (If so, how do I do this?)

Thank you for your help...

Paul.

 

[TonyJollans]

As far as I know you have no options in this area and the version of RTF used is hard coded in, and will depend upon, the version of Word you are using.

Word 2003 uses version 1.8, and Word 2007, version 1.9. I seem to recall reading somewhere (but can't find where at the moment) that there was to be no further change and that some features of Word 2010 would not be saveable in RTF at all.

Enjoy,
Tony

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[TonyJollans]

Found it!

Here is a list of all versions:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/924944

and here is the notice about 2010:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc179199(office.14).aspx[/URL]]The RTF file format is no longer enhanced to include new features and functionality. Features and functionality that are new to Word 2010 and future versions of Word are lost when they are saved in RTF.

Enjoy,
Tony

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[xwb]

RTF is backwards compatible so it doesn't matter which version you save it as.

If you look at the file in notepad you will see that there are fallbacks so that if the reader doesn't support a particular feature, it knows what to do to display the document. That way, even Works 2.0 can display RTF generated by Word 2003 with a lot of bits missing.

 

[xwb]

The big advantage of RTF is that the documents can be saved under source code control. The .doc documents can also be saved but they are saved as binary files. This means it doesn't save the differences: it just saves a completely new version of the file. As a result, the size of the repository grows by a huge amount every time you checkin a file.

 

[Paul12345671]

Thanks for your help guys. RTF might be backwards compatible, but I really can't afford to have bits missing - and you're right, having bits missing was the problem. (Actually, this is not really what I would call 'backwards compatible'. But I suppose that having bits missing is as good as anyone can do, and it is better than crashing.)

Just in case it helps anyone else, MS seem to update the RTF independently of the major major version upgrades. I.e. my compatable and incompatible versions of the RTF document are both produced by Word 2003.

Word 2003 SP3 (11.8227.8221) produced the incompatible version, while Word 2003 (11.5604.5606) produced the compatible version.

I don't suppose that Open Office is any better in this regard? (The current version of Open Office is causing the same trouble as the current version of Word).

Paul.

 

[strongm]

I am not aware of any RTF specification change in Word 2003. Version 1.8 is all you get ... Perhaps the RTF produced by Word is not, after all, the (direct) issue ...