The MIME type application/rtf is used to denote the presence of Rich Text Format document files. This MIME type is categorized under "application".

Rich Text Format documents carry the extension RTF. The Rich Text Format was developed by Microsoft in the year 1987 for enabling cross-platform document interchange. Most of the modern word processors are able to read RTF documents. The syntax used in the format was inspired by the format used in the TeX typesetting language. Even though the first developments of this format were already on the way during the 1980s, the first reader and writer for RTF did not ship until the year 1987 when it was first released to the public. It was shipped as part of Microsoft Word 3.0 for the Macintosh Platform.

Technically, RTF is an 8-bit format and hence it is supposed to be limited to ASCII only. However, RTF can use escape sequences to go beyond normal ASCII when encoding characters. There are two possible character escapes � code page escape and Unicode escape. The unprocessed code for RTF is more or less human readable, unlike some of the other formats. That means the elements of the code are not intrusive enough to make the plain text unreadable.