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Can anyone recommend software (preferably freeware) for batch converting rtf files to txt files on Unix?
Fred
Posted 2011-02-08T15:04:43.033
Reputation: 109
Rtf to txt on Unix
Answers
4
You didn't mention what flavour of UNIX but I think there's a textutil on many.
http://www.unix.com/man-page/All/1/TEXTUTIL/
-convert fmt Convert the specified files to the indicated format and
write each one back to the file system.
fmt is one of: txt, html, rtf, rtfd, doc, docx, wordml,
odt, or webarchive
mockman
Posted 2011-02-08T15:04:43.033
Reputation: 206
2That's only available on OS X. Check the bottom of the man page. – Ross Light – 2012-12-03T21:43:27.997
4
There are many different ones, here are the ones I've tested successfully (all open source and free):
- unrtf
- wv
- unoconv
Thor
Posted 2011-02-08T15:04:43.033
Reputation: 5 178
1antiword doesn't work with rtf documents, as far as i can tell. – dino – 2015-06-14T18:05:23.007
@dino: You are right, my mistake. – Thor – 2015-06-15T00:03:29.850
3
There is "unrtf", but while the Ubuntu package data claims that it can create text output, the GNU unrtf homepage does not mention that format. But perhaps you can try that.
jstarek
Posted 2011-02-08T15:04:43.033
Reputation: 928
1Ubuntu is right. The man page says: --text selects plain ASCII text output. – Themroc – 2016-12-09T23:54:35.380
2
A quick glance at an RTF file suggests that RTF markup is anything between {braces} and anything between a backslash and a space \markup. So maybe strings and a short sed/awk/perl script to delete markup would get you close to plain text.
RedGrittyBrick
Posted 2011-02-08T15:04:43.033
Reputation: 70 632
1What format do you want the txt files to be? Stripped of all formatting, or somewhat richer, e.g. Markdown, like this site supports? – Daniel Beck – 2011-02-08T17:19:37.003