Delphi: best way to convert rtf to text

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+4 Q:

Delphi: best way to convert rtf to text

I need to convert rtf to plain text. i used to write a function that strips away rtf headers but it is never perfect.

So one option can be using a TRichEdit created at runtime (something like described here but done of course at runtime). But is there another way? Is there an rtl function for this or a better approach?

UPDATE:

In this question I wrote the final version of my rtf to text procedure.

+1 A:

If you really want to find a way of doing this conversion you should take a look at how the class TConversion is implemented in the class TRichEditStrings. These classes are in ComCtrls.pas. By understanding how the conversion is done inside the RichEdit controls you may be able to write your own.

However, looking at the practical aspects of implementing this and not knowing what the performance requirements are for your question I would go for the TRichEdit conversion approach outlined in your link.

Alan Fletcher 2010-07-09 19:33:15

TRichEditStrings doesn't implement any conversion, all the work is done by the RichEdit control (TRichEdit is nothing but an wrapper around Microsoft's RichEdit control). Writing your own RTF to TEXT implementation is simple for the simple case and very complicated for the complex cases. Microsoft Word can save any document to RTF, retaining all formating. Think about the most weired Word document you ever saw, using the most contorted table structure; Imagine someone saves that as RTF and asks you to convert it to TEXT!

Cosmin Prund 2010-07-09 20:40:12

Ok, I will go for it. There are 2 problems that should be solved in someother way: I need to search in an DB rtf field (for that the trick I am using is to search for the string in the rtf text, it is not the eprfect trick but tipcally works if searching for single words), I need to return "as text" in a grid the content of many rtf fields (here the workaround is returning rtf formatted text). Of course an alternative could be saving also a text field, so for every rtf I save, I save also the text-only version, can be a good approach in a new application,.

2010-07-12 07:54:26

The page

http://www.delphipraxis.net/152766-rtf-nach-html.html for some pointers to components, libraries and other sources for RTF converters, some of them include a RTF to Text conversion option.
ScroogeXHTML, a library for RTF to HTML / XHTML conversion, might be useful. It supports a subset of the RTF standard, and is easy to customize. It has a PlainText export format option. Note: I am the author of ScroogeXHTML for Delphi / ScroogeXHTML for the Java platform. It is a commercial product.

mjustin 2010-07-10 05:48:16

ansaurus

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Delphi: best way to convert rtf to text

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