Extract text from Revit templates or documents (RFT)
To convert RFT files to another format, you need IBM DisplayWrite or other Text software.
To convert other file formats to the "Legacy Document Format" file type, you need software like IBM DisplayWrite or a similar tool.
The .rft extension represents a collision between legacy document management and modern architectural design. Most commonly, it is an IBM Revisable Form Text document, a format rooted in the Document Content Architecture (DCA) standards of the 1980s and 90s. These files were created by software like IBM DisplayWrite to standardize document exchange between mainframes and early PCs. The challenge with IBM RFT files today is that they are technically obsolete; modern word processors like Microsoft Word dropped native support for them years ago, leaving your data locked inside a proprietary binary wrapper. Opening them often results in a mess of control codes and garbled text unless you use specialized conversion middleware.
Alternatively, in the architecture and engineering sector, an .rft file is an Autodesk Revit Family Template. These are not finished drawings but foundational templates used to create Revit Families (.RFA). Users often mistakenly try to "open" these directly into a project, but they are designed to be the starting point for a new family editor session. If you are trying to view these without Autodesk Revit, you will hit a wall - they are complex, proprietary CAD databases. For legacy IBM documents, the best path is converting to PDF/A for archiving or DOCX for modern editing. For Revit templates, the only valid "conversion" is instantiating them into an RFA file within the Revit environment.
Convert.Guru analyzes your RFT file, detects the exact format, and lets you read the text inside.
Users also converted RTF, RFA, RVT, RPF, RFP, RFN, RFO, RMT and RM files.
If you want to convert RFT file to RMT, RM, OBJ, FBX, DAE, 3DS, MAX, BLEND, MA, MB, C4D or STL, you can use IBM DisplayWrite or similar software from the "Legacy Document Exchange" category. In the File menu, look for Save As… or Export….
To convert DWG, DAE, X3D, IGES, WRL, JT, SKP, 3DS, 3DM, OBJ, STEP or FBX files to RFT, try IBM DisplayWrite or another comparable tool in the "Legacy Document Exchange" category.
The history of Convert.Guru began over 25 years ago in California with Tom Simondi’s file-format database. A former contributor to Space Shuttle development and a software pioneer of the 1980s, Simondi established a trusted resource for file type analysis that was even referenced by Microsoft Windows XP. Today, we use modern technology to process and convert thousands of file formats while continually improving our RFT converter.