submitting in rtf format

Raphee · Oct 3, 2011

I've been shopping my short for a few weeks. Some mags want pdf, doc, or rtf format for online submission, or any one of the three.
However one journal I want to submit to said rtf format. With my limited knowledge of computers I think rtf applies to MS Word documents also. It may also apply to 'Text documents' with rtf extension. Word documents would carry the doc extension.
The magazine makes it clear in its submission guidelines that file extension should be rtf.
Wouldn't a text document with rtf file extension lose formatting done in Word. I did convert my short to rtf text document. On screen it appears ugly and the formatting is all gone.
What should I do? And why does the magazine want rtf format only? How would the formatting be regained by the magazine?

Polenth · Oct 3, 2011

When they say rft, they mean rft... not a doc. But this isn't a problem, as you can save as rft in Word. Rtf keeps basic formatting, such as font, paragraph spacing and alignment. When you save it as rft in Word, it'll also save things like the headers. So it looks no different.

Advanced formatting won't be saved, but for a basic story, you have no need of that stuff.

Jamesaritchie · Oct 3, 2011

It's not a matter of extensions, it's simply a matter of going to "save as", and then saving the file as an .rtf document. Any formatting this doesn't save shouldn't have been there in the first place.

Raphee · Oct 3, 2011

Jamesaritchie said:
It's not a matter of extensions, it's simply a matter of going to "save as", and then saving the file as an .rtf document. Any formatting this doesn't save shouldn't have been there in the first place.

I tried doing that with my word document. It gives me only the options of saving as doc or docx. There is no option for save as...rtf

Jamesaritchie · Oct 4, 2011

Raphee said:
I tried doing that with my word document. It gives me only the options of saving as doc or docx. There is no option for save as...rtf

What word processor are you using? I've yet to find one that doesn't have save as .rtf. Word does, OpenOffice does. So does every word processor I've tried.

In Word 2007 and 2010, it's under "other formats". And, of course, in the list it's called Rich Text Format, rather than .rtf.

Mark W. · Oct 4, 2011

Even Wordpad has RTF as a save option.

And once you save it in RTF, the formatting won't change as long as the extension remains RTF.

Raphee · Oct 4, 2011

Jamesaritchie said:
What word processor are you using? I've yet to find one that doesn't have save as .rtf. Word does, OpenOffice does. So does every word processor I've tried.

In Word 2007 and 2010, it's under "other formats". And, of course, in the list it's called Rich Text Format, rather than .rtf.

I am using Word 2003. I did do an upgrade to Word 2007 and 2010. But then I reverted back to the older version.
I remember that previously I did have the Save As ..rtf option. Now that I try I don't have it.

Polenth · Oct 4, 2011

Raphee said:
I am using Word 2003. I did do an upgrade to Word 2007 and 2010. But then I reverted back to the older version.
I remember that previously I did have the Save As ..rtf option. Now that I try I don't have it.

It's not a problem I've heard of before, so you may want to reinstall. If you can't reinstall for some reason, OpenOffice does a decent job of saving as rft. I use OpenOffice and Word interchangeably and don't have an issue.

WordPad will do it, but it strips the headers, so isn't as good.

areteus · Oct 5, 2011

rtf is usually asked for because of compatibility issues. Because of the stupid formatting of newer versions of Word (leading to many who have the new versions inadvertantly saving as .docx which only opens on newer versions of Word unless you buy a compatibility patch instead of .doc which is more open) there are issues with files being sent to a publisher which the publisher may not be able to open. Even before .docx came about there were issues with this.

The idea behind .rtf is that it is a format which is compatible with every word processor without losing too much formatting. .txt is compatible with everything too but the formatting is awful so rtf is the next step up and allows the use of different fonts, bold, italics, underline and many of the basic word processing functions. To be honest, with the average mauscript format, a change between .doc or .docx to .rtf should not lose any formatting at all because you very rarely need any of the advanced formatting functions that are only available on .doc or .docx for a standard manuscript. In fact, I am not aware of ever using any of the advanced features of word in any document I have written apart from the indexing and content page functions (for my thesis, and they messed everything up so I had to fix it all by hand because those functions never work well...)

A simple 'save as' option should lead you to a place where you can select from a pull down menu an option called 'rich text format' or '.rtf' ad save it as that and watch how nothing at all changes in the format....

Jamesaritchie · Oct 5, 2011

Raphee said:
I am using Word 2003. I did do an upgrade to Word 2007 and 2010. But then I reverted back to the older version.
I remember that previously I did have the Save As ..rtf option. Now that I try I don't have it.

If 2003 doesn't show an .rtf option, something really weird went seriously wrong with the install. I used 2003 for several years, and had to save hundreds of documents as .rtf files.

Lillie · Oct 5, 2011

I'm using word 2003.

When I do 'save as' and click the arrow for the save formats, I can't see rtf. I have to scroll the side bar down, and then it's there.

You have probably done this, but sometime it's the simple things that get missed, so I thought I'd mention it.

Raphee · Oct 5, 2011

Thanks all of you for the replies above. Is it an option that I save this as a text document in MS. I think the extension remains .rtf

Lillie, which side bar are you talking--the one that shows options for save as--as part of the small dialog box that opens up.

Yep James, something word has opened with the install. Or either MS have disabled this as part of when of their patches, though I can't understand why.

Thanks Areteus for the comprehensive reply.

Raphee · Oct 5, 2011

Ok. I've finally found the right area to do the save as. I was using a short cut, and then just figured an alternate. No point going into details. I was actually worried that something had gone wrong with either Word, or there were changes that I was unaware of. With all these new MS Word programs I was genuinely afraid that the older versions might have some issues.
Thanks everyone. Now I can go ahead and submit.

submitting in rtf format

Raphee

In debt to AW

Polenth

Mushroom

Jamesaritchie

Raphee

In debt to AW

Jamesaritchie

Mark W.

Raphee

In debt to AW

Polenth

Mushroom

areteus

Jamesaritchie

Lillie

practical experience, FTW

Raphee

In debt to AW

Raphee

In debt to AW