DOC vs. RTF format

[John Goche]

Hello,

I would like to know what the difference
is between .doc, .docx, and RTF formats.
Are they not all three developed by Microsoft?
Is RTF just an older version of the .doc format
which in turn is nothing more than an older
version of the .docx format?

Thanks,

John Goche

 

[Terry Farrell]

You are correct about doc and docx. But RTF is a universal format and most
(if not all) word processors should be able to save and open an RTF
document.

Docx and docm (when there are macros attached) are new formats that are
really a collection of xml component files all zipped up and assigned the
dotx(m) extension. This was introduced with Office 2007. If you rename them
to .zip, you can unzip them and see all the xml component files.