How to write RTF from Python?

[Howard Lightstone]

achrist at easystreet.com wrote in news:3EAA13D3.F7B4B9A6 at easystreet.com:

> kkennedy wrote:
>> 
>> RTF format (MS open format???) is a moving target.  RTF files created
>> by MS Word 97 will look odd or worse in MS Word 95, and be completely
>> unreadable in WordPad. Either find out what version of RTF WordPad
>> uses and use that, or require your users to have a specific version
>> of MS Word (or the free download - MS Word viewer).
>> 
> 
> That's one reason why I asked if there were any solutions already
> available.  If someone had already identified the forms of rtf 
> markup that worked well in all those versions, I would not want 
> to rediscover the same set of tires.  
[snip]

About 8 years ago I did sort of the opposite.  We wanted a way to keep 
documentation, specifications, and code aligned so I dreamed up a method of 
using Word as a (semi-)literate editor with different (defined by me) 
styles for each kind of thing.  Of course, then I had to write code to 
extract out the various headers, code segments, build instructions , etc. 
which had to feed to the many existing compilers, linkers, and such.  I 
made them keep the code in RTF so I could *just* write an ASCII parser for 
it.    

Right.

Every version of Word and many different combinations of operating systems 
kept me constantly updating the parser.  The RTF "rules" (all three 
versions I downloaded from Microsoft) do NOT contain all the different 
possibilities that Word expects/generates nor do they explain just how you 
need to order various pieces.  We resolved most of our issues by smacking 
the knuckles of anyone who tried a "new" way of formatting and by making 
them responsible for proper code extraction (although they did a lot of 
whining at me).

If you have simple boilerplate requirements, try making a simple file with 
one example of each formatting kind and then dumping the RTF.   You will 
then see.....   (I used a package for parsing RTF which I HIGHLY recommend
   http://www.dubois.ws/software/RTF 
that happens to have the RTF spec with it).