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RTF Pocket Guide

By Sean M. Burke
July 2003
Pages: 156
Series: Pocket References
ISBN 10: 0-596-00475-3 | ISBN 13: 9780596004750
(Average of 2 Customer Reviews)

Book description

Any programmer working with text files today needs a way to deal with Microsoft® Word documents and their underlying Rich Text Format. RTF is notoriously difficult to work with, and our handy quick reference is the only book available on what many developers call "this maddeningly unstructured format." Small and easy to use on the job, RTF Pocket Guide focuses on the "workhorse" codes that programmers can't do without, including text style codes, paragraph formatting codes, and page formatting codes-- all with many examples of real use.
Full Description

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Cover | Table of Contents | Index | Sample Excerpt

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Featured customer reviews

Great resource,  July 12 2007
Submitted by Anonymous Reader   [Respond | View]

This book saved me A LOT of time. I had to use PHP to write an RTF document with style definitions to be used in Word and Adobe InDesign. I spent a ton of time searching the web for tutorials or tips, but they were all complicated and incomplete. I also tried going through the source code of MS Word documents trying to figure out how it was written. After a lot of frustration, I found this book. It's short and easy to read and understand. It gives you the basics on how to construct an RTF file with code that is clean, easy to read, and easy to debug. It was just what I needed. I can't beleive there isn't any tutorial like this available on the web. I did still have to look at the MS Word code to fix a couple of things, and I also used an online reference to figure out some of the more obscure codes, but overall this book was very helpful. I recommend it.


RTF Pocket Guide Review,  August 07 2003
Submitted by vjoet   [Respond | View]

RTF Pocket Guide is a slim volumn, but its size belies the wealth of explanation it contains. Even a cursory reading will leave you with a much better understanding of something almost all programmers know a little about.

To expand on the book itself, there are valuable supplements for download:

http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/rtfpg/

and click the Examples link.

(Parenthetically, I like topic-specific computer books, O'Reilly's Pocket Guides and Wrox's Handbooks).

The book's stated intent is to offer an introduction to Rich Text Format, and is a valuable preface to Microsoft's Rich Text Format (RTF) Specification. It does a good job of that, offering both analysis and caveats.

Now, if I don't offer a criticism or two this post will sound like it was done by the Marketing Department.

1. I'd like to see the Perl code in the addendums translated into C# or VB. That probably would make it more accessible to more users.

2. I wish the chapter on section breaks were fuller than it is. (Probably not a big deal for most programmers.)

I'd strongly recommend this book for any programmer needing to work with RTF files.

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Media reviews "Documentation for RTF is sparse, and generally terse...The only RTF-specific book I have seen in Sean Burke's 'RTF Pocket Guide'...a concise turorial and a reference suitable for RTF newcomers familiar with markup languages...Anyone who has a need for converting Word files for publication on the web should fine it an invaluable resource."
--Major Keary, AUSOM News, April 2004

"The only RTF-specific text I have seen is O'Reilly's 'RTF Pocket Guide."...The 'Pocket Guide' contains an exceptionally well-presented description of RTF and includes a tutorial on how to use it. The publisher makes it clear that this is not a definitive reference; even so, it is probably the most meaningful text on the subject: relevant, comprehensible, practical, and supported by useful examples. The focus is on the essentials, but with this as a guide the official specification will be a lot easier to understand...If you have a sense of enquiry--even if you don't see yourself with a need to parse RTF documents--this is an interesting insight into the Rich Text Format. It is not just a catalogue of commands and tokens; the author explains what they do and how they are applied. The language is remarkably clear in this very readable account of what many would consider an arcane topic. And it is inexpensive."
--Major Keary, PC Update, October 2003

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