RTF2RTF(1)

📦
version 0.9.86 · 3 versions
, in arch rolling, debian trixie, nixos 26.05, nixpkgs unstable, ubuntu questing, ubuntu resolute, ubuntu stonking

✨ NAME ✨

okay so welcome to rtf2rtf, bestie 💖 this page lives in the General Commands Manual and it's here to tell you about the programs that postprocess the raw RTF generated by the mapping files. that's the whole vibe. periodt.

🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

rtf2rtf [options] ..

🎀 DESCRIPTION 🎀

so this manual page is gonna give you the brief little rundown of the rtf2rtf commands, nothing more, nothing less 🫶. fun fact: this page was written for the Debian GNU/Linux distribution because the original program straight up does not have a manual page for rtf2rtf. we're improvising, and honestly? we ate.

rtf2rtf is a program that postprocesses the raw RTF generated by the mapping files. that's its whole job. it's giving lexer with a mission 💅.

it gets used by other programs in sgml-tools (v1), and usually a normal user does not need to use this program directly. like, it's backstage crew, not the main character — no cap.

okay and now, following is quoted from the README in the source tree 👇

(Begin Quotes)

I'm not proud of this code. It's a hack foisted upon a hack, nested within another hack or two. It sort of works well enough for my purposes (generating WinHelp .RTF files for my documents), but it could definitely use a redesign/rewrite. It started as a simple perturbation of the html2html filter, but got ugly very quickly...
I shamelessly blame the RTF format for most of the hackery here — RTF is not a language like LaTeX or ROFF — it's just a file format. So, we can't rely on RTF to do even simple things like "insert a paragraph break here only if the previous token was not also a paragraph break". Since the SGML front end has no conditional processing capabilities, multiple blank likes in the SGML get translated to multiple para breaks in the RTF. That's why we use a "lex" filter (rtf2rtf) to postprocess the raw RTF generated by the mapping files.
Again: I offer this to the Linuxdoc community with the hopes that it will be useful to others and that someone else can help flesh out the missing pieces. What? Missing pieces? Yes, recall that I say it works "well enough for my purposes". The replacement files (general, mapping) started out like as the latex replacement files. Much of them still are the latex replacement files. I only converted those parts that are actually used by my documents. Your documents may require more of the files to be translated to RTF.
Since I'm using these mappings for actual documentation, I plan on maintaining this backend, so please send me any improvements — I'll coordinate with Greg to make sure they get into the the next official release.

(End Quotes)

💅 OPTIONS 💅

ngl, there's not much to say here:

  • the programs does not support normal command line option.

that's it. that's the tea 💀 no flags, no frills, no crumbs.

🦋 SEE ALSO 🦋

for a complete description, see the README file in the source archive. go read it, it's lowkey the whole lore 📖✨

👑 AUTHOR 👑

rtf2rtf was written by Steve Tynor (tynor@atlanta.twr.com) in December 1995 🎂. this manual page was written by Taketoshi Sano <sano@debian.org>, for the Debian GNU/Linux system (but may be used by others — share the love 🫶). currently maintained by Agustin Martin <agustin6martin AT gmail com> 💖

and that's a wrap, bestie 🎀 this iconic little page is dated 2000-05-14 and it answers to the name RTF2RTF(1). stan a hack-nested-in-a-hack that still shows up to work. mwah 💋✨

📦 where this page comes from