RTF to HTML Convertors

There are several programs available that can convert RTF ( Rich Text Format ) files to HTML files. Since Microsoft Works can save its word processor files as RTF files, this RTF-to-HTML conversion process is one possible way to put Microsoft Works files on the web.

Listed below are a few RTF-to-HTML convertors that I am aware of. Where possible, I provided comments about the programs. Before I list them, I want to comment about one thing that seems to be common to all of the convertors.

None of the RTF-to-HTML convertors listed below produces very pretty HTML code. RTF is a formatting language, unlike HTML, which is a logical mark-up language. As a result, these convertors seems to get hung up on using the <FONT> tag and the out-dated ALIGN properties of some tags in an attempt to reproduce the formatting of the RTF file. This does not mean that the pages look bad or do not work at all; on the contrary, they work fine, and for many uses ( for example, internal web sites where everyone is using the same browser ) they can be used un-modified. For situations where multiple browsers are expected to be used and adherance to HTML recommendations is required, the use of <FONT> and ALIGN is pretty predictable, so a text editor with good search-and-replace functionality can be used to quickly clean up the HTML and bring it up to the level of the HTML recommendations ( see www.w3c.org for more information about the HTML recommendations ).

• Martha

  Martha is a great, free 16-bit DOS application that converts RTF files to HTML files. It's small, it's quick, and it runs under DOS and, therefore, any version of Windows. I really like this program, because of it's simplicity and because it's free.

  Interesting, Martha's author, Yves Sagnier, has also written the inverse program ( i.e. an HTML-to-RTF convertor ) called htm2rtf. It's available from his web site.

• Logictran RTF Converter

  The Logictran RTF Converter is a shareware program ($69 per single user), which is available for darn near any platform you can think of, including several flavors of UNIX, DOS/Windows, Macintosh, and VMS. Volume licensing is also offered, so if you are in a multi-platform environment, this might be the way to go. It also converts to XML, and has a LOT of features.

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