Open-The-File.com

Find how to open any file type

How to open .RTX files on Linux

To open .RTX files on Linux, in your file manager, right-click the .rtx file → Open With → choose a text editor/viewer associated with text/richtext on your system.

Step-by-step instructions

  1. In your file manager, right-click the .rtx file → Open With → choose a text editor/viewer associated with text/richtext on your system.
  2. If double-clicking doesn’t offer a suitable app, use “Open With Other Application…” and try a text editor first to verify it’s a readable rich text document.
  3. If your desktop environment misidentifies the file type, update/rebuild MIME associations (shared-mime-info is commonly used for the *.rtx → text/richtext mapping).

Common issues

The .RTX file won’t open or opens in the wrong app

Your system may not have an app associated with text/richtext, or the file association may be incorrect.

  1. Use “Open with” and manually choose a compatible editor/viewer (commonly WordPad on Windows or TextEdit on macOS).
  2. If Linux doesn’t recognize it properly, check your desktop’s MIME associations (the shared-mime-info database maps *.rtx to text/richtext).

Formatting looks different than expected

Different programs may interpret rich text markup differently, so styling and layout may not match across apps.

  1. Try opening the file in another compatible editor/word processor and compare results.
  2. If you need consistent sharing, open it in a desktop app and re-save/export to a format your recipients commonly use.

The file contains unreadable characters or looks like the wrong format

The file may be corrupted, incomplete, or not actually a Rich Text (text/richtext) document despite the .rtx extension.

  1. Open it in a plain-text editor to see whether it contains readable rich text content.
  2. Re-download or ask the sender for the file again if it appears truncated or corrupted.

Security note

.RTX (text/richtext) is a text-based format, but you should still treat files from unknown sources cautiously: a maliciously crafted text file can sometimes exploit bugs in a viewer/editor’s parser.

Back to .RTX extension page