# RTF and RTFD Support

Marked can open Rich Text Format (`.rtf`) and RTFD (`.rtfd`) documents directly. Drag a file to Marked or use File Open… (`⌘`+`O`). The document is converted to Markdown for preview and export.

This works well with documents from Pages, TextEdit, Word, and other apps that save RTF or RTFD. Marked is still a preview tool: you edit in the original application and Marked updates when you save.

Contents

- How conversion works
- Live preview
- Images
- Export and other features
- Limitations
- Related topics

## How conversion works

Marked converts RTF to HTML using the system text engine, then to Markdown. The converter:

- Maps large paragraph font sizes to heading levels (relative to the most common body size in the document)
- Preserves bold, italic, and links where possible
- Extracts images from RTFD bundles and embedded attachments
- Does not treat RTF filenames as image captions (see Images below)

The same conversion pipeline is used for Scrivener RTF compile and for RTF files included in other documents.

## Live preview

When you save the RTF or RTFD file in another application, Marked detects the change and refreshes the preview automatically.

## Images

RTF does not define a separate “caption” field in a way Cocoa exports to HTML. What looks like a caption in your layout is usually normal text in the next paragraph, and Marked keeps that as body text.

Embedded images and images inside RTFD bundles (for example `pastedGraphic.png` in a Pages export) are copied to a cache folder under `~/Library/Caches/Marked/Watchers/`. Preview image paths point at those cached files until you export.

Marked does not use the image filename as alt text or a MultiMarkdown figure caption. You should not see `pastedGraphic.png` under the image unless you typed that text in the document.

## Export and other features

After conversion, Marked treats the document like other compiled sources (similar to Scrivener and DOCX): export, statistics, and most preview features run against the generated Markdown stored in the Watchers cache.

## Limitations

Conversion quality depends on the source application. In general:

- Headings are inferred from font size, not from Word/Pages outline styles
- Complex layout (multi-column tables used only for positioning, text boxes) may not map cleanly to Markdown
- Equations in RTF are not supported in the preview (see MathJax for Markdown math)
- Legacy `.doc` (binary Word) is not supported; save as DOCX or RTF first

For a one-off paste without saving a file, use Clipboard Preview instead.

## Related topics

- PDF Support – open PDF documents as Markdown sources
- Working with DOCX – Word documents with change tracking and comments
- Opening Files – drag and drop, Open Recent, clipboard
- Exporting – Copy Rich Text and save RTFD (export), distinct from opening RTF as a source file

#### Next up: PDF Support ▶

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