Rich Text File to PDF, No Software Needed
Change a rich text file to PDF in seconds while tables, images, colours and links stay in place. Nothing to install, nothing uploaded, no account required.
- Free to use, no login
- Runs locally in your browser
- Clean output, no stamp
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Save an RTF file as PDF
Drop your .rtf documents onto the page or pick them from a folder. A whole batch is fine.
Glance at the first-page preview and adjust paper, orientation, margins or page numbering only if the defaults do not suit you.
Press Convert to PDF and save the result: one PDF, a ZIP with one PDF per document, or a single combined file.
What the toolbox does with your rich text file
Page setup taken from the original
Paper size, orientation and margins are read from the RTF itself, so a US Letter memo comes out as Letter and a European letter stays A4 unless you pick something else.
Searchable output, not a scan
Words land in the PDF as genuine text, so readers can search them, copy a paragraph or use a screen reader. The title, author and keywords stored in the document travel along as PDF properties.
Made for piles of documents
Add dozens of RTF files in one go. Each becomes its own PDF and they download together as a ZIP, or tick Merge all into one PDF to get one file in the order listed.
Stays on your machine
The conversion happens inside the browser tab on your own computer or phone. No server ever receives the text, which matters for HR letters, client contracts and patient notes.
Rich text file to PDF: who needs it and why
Rich Text Format is the quiet workhorse of office life. WordPad and TextEdit save it, and plenty of practice-management, legal and payroll programs export their letters and reports as .rtf. The trouble is that an RTF can shift when someone opens it in a different editor, and many upload forms only take PDF. Turning the file into a PDF freezes the layout so it reads the same for everyone.
Everyday jobs this tool handles
- Students submit essays written in a simple editor to a course portal that accepts PDF only.
- Office and HR teams send offer letters, policies and reference letters that must not be edited along the way.
- Freelancers deliver quotes and invoices whose dot-leader price columns stay perfectly aligned.
- Real estate agents share property descriptions and tenancy terms exported from their listing software.
- Teachers hand out worksheets with tables and pictures that keep their layout whichever computer opens them.
Tips for a clean result
Tables keep their borders, shading and merged cells; when one runs past the bottom of a page it continues on the next, repeating any rows marked as headers. A table or picture wider than the page is shrunk to fit. If an image goes missing, it was probably stored as a Windows metafile: insert it again as PNG or JPEG, save, and convert once more. Greek, Cyrillic and Central European text is decoded properly, but the bundled font cannot draw Chinese, Japanese or Korean characters and does not shape Arabic or Hebrew, so the tool warns you when boxes might appear.
Two smaller details are worth knowing. Web addresses and email links that were clickable in the editor stay clickable in the PDF. Hidden text and tracked deletions are dropped, exactly as they would be on a printout, so check that nothing you meant to keep was hidden.
Other things you can save as PDF
Questions people ask about this task
How do I save a rich text file as a PDF without Word?
Open this page, add the .rtf document and press Convert to PDF. Word, WordPad or any other installed program is not needed because the browser does all the work.
Which fonts end up in the PDF?
Regular text uses a sans-serif face with the same metrics as Arial, while serif and monospace passages get Times-style and Courier-style fonts. Unusual typefaces fall back to the closest of these three, and turning off Keep serif and monospace fonts sets everything in sans-serif.
What parts of an RTF document get left out?
Headers, footers, footnotes, comments and text boxes are skipped for now, as are old WMF or EMF drawings. If you need numbering, tick Add page numbers and a small "1 / 5" style counter is printed at the bottom of each page.
Can I combine several rich text files into one PDF?
Yes. Add all of them, switch on Merge all into one PDF and they are joined in the order they appear in the list.
What happens if my .rtf file is really a Word document?
The tool looks at what is inside the file rather than trusting its name. A .docx saved with an .rtf extension is flagged so you can use Word to PDF instead, and an old .doc file needs to be re-saved as .docx or .rtf first.
Can I change the margins before saving?
Yes. Keep the margins stored in the file or choose minimal, narrow, normal or wide presets, or type a custom value in millimetres. The preview redraws each time you change a setting.