text:
Delta Air Lines Flight 1141

Delta Air Lines Flight 1141 was a scheduled domestic passenger flight between Dallas/Fort Worth, Texas, and Salt Lake City, Utah. On August 31, 1988, the flight, using a Boeing 727-200 series aircraft, crashed during takeoff, resulting in 14 deaths and 76 injuries among the 108 on board.

Aircraft
The aircraft was a Boeing 727-200 Advanced, MSN 20750, registered as , a three-engine narrow-body jet aircraft. It was delivered to Delta Air Lines in November 1973, and was the 992nd Boeing 727 to be manufactured. The aircraft had logged around 43023 airframe hours and was powered by three Pratt & Whitney JT8D-15 turbofan engines.

Crew
The flight crew consisted of Captain Larry Lon Davis (age 48), First Officer Carey Wilson Kirkland (37); and Flight Engineer Steven Mark Judd (30). Captain Davis was a highly experienced pilot, with a total of approximately 17,000 flight hours, 7,000 of which had been in the 727. First Officer Kirkland had a total of 6,500 flight hours, with 4,500 hours in the 727. Flight Engineer Judd had a total of 3,000 flight hours, including 600 hours in the 727.

The cabin crew consisted of four flight attendants: Dixie Dunn (56); Diana George (40); Rosilyn Marr (43); and Mary O'Neill (57).

Crash
Flight 1141 was a regularly scheduled passenger flight from Jackson Municipal Airport in Jackson, Mississippi, to Salt Lake City International Airport in Salt Lake City, Utah, with an intermediate stop at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport (DFW) in North Texas. The Wednesday morning flight from Jackson to DFW was uneventful, and Flight 1141 arrived at DFW at 07:38 CDT. For the flight from DFW to Salt Lake City, Flight 1141 had 101 passengers and seven crew members on board.

At 08:30, Flight 1141 departed from the gate at DFW and was cleared by the ground controller to taxi to runway 18L. The aircraft was instructed to line up on the runway and hold for one minute due to the possibility of wake turbulence from an American Airlines DC-10 that was departing. The crew requested to extend the hold to two minutes, which was granted. The crew talked to the flight attendants for a while about what they would say on the cockpit recorder in case they crashed. Eventually this chat ceased as the crew was cleared for takeoff. The takeoff was normal until the main wheels left the ground, at which point the aircraft commenced a violent rolling motion and the right wing dropped. The aircraft's tail made contact with the runway briefly, and 650 feet later, the right wingtip struck the runway. The aircraft developed compressor surges (due to breakdown of the airflow through the engine), and was unable to gain altitude or maintain stabilized flight. Approximately 900 feet beyond the end of runway 18L, the plane's right wing hit the ILS localizer antenna, which set the wing on fire and caused it to start disintegrating while the plane was still in flight. The aircraft remained airborne for another 400 feet before it struck the ground, sliding sideways and leaving a trail of wreckage 800 feet long before finally coming to a rest 3200 feet from the end of the runway. Fire erupted in the right wing area and quickly spread and engulfed the rear of the aircraft. The total flight time was 22 seconds, from liftoff to the first ground impact.

Casualties
Two of the four flight attendants (Dunn and Marr) and 12 of the 101 passengers on board died in the crash. Medical examinations determined that all but one of the fatalities were due to smoke inhalation. One passenger, who had successfully exited the aircraft, attempted to re-enter the aircraft in order to assist his wife and other passengers still trapped inside; he suffered severe burns and died 11 days after the accident from his injuries.

Captain Davis, First Officer Kirkland, two cabin crew members, and 22 passengers were seriously injured. Flight Engineer Judd and 49 passengers received minor injuries; 18 passengers received no injuries. Many of the passengers reported that impact forces were not severe and mostly concentrated towards the back of the aircraft. Captain Davis suffered severe fractures to the rib cage and spine that required surgery. First Officer Kirkland was badly bruised and sustained a concussion. Flight Engineer Judd sustained injuries to his abdomen.

Aircraft performance
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) investigation into the accident attempted to reconstruct the aircraft's performance based on reports from witnesses and survivors. Witnesses reported that the plane attempted to climb at a higher than normal angle, and that the plane rolled from side to side and appeared to be out of control. Based on examination of the wreckage, the NTSB determined that collision with the instrument landing system (ILS) localizer antenna array approximately 900 ft beyond the departure end of the runway 18L led to the breakup of the aircraft. Leaking jet fuel started a fire that quickly engulfed the fuselage. Engine #3 had separated from the empennage. Passengers reported that the plane appeared to shake violently on takeoff. Witnesses on the ground claimed that one of the engines was on fire, but although the engine was badly crushed from ground impact, there was no sign of fire or heat damage. Delta officials quickly reacted to questions about the 727's operating and maintenance condition by pointing out that the original factory engines from 1973 (when the plane was initially purchased by the airline) had been replaced in the last few years by a newer model that ran more quietly and used less fuel. They also stated that there were no known mechanical or maintenance problems with the plane prior to the flight.

The NTSB examined why the plane was unable to climb once it departed the runway. After conducting airplane performance studies, the NTSB determined that the events of Flight 1141 could only be explained by the aircraft attempting to take off without its flaps and slats extended to the proper take-off configuration. The aircraft's instability and sudden roll to the right was consistent with known performance of the Boeing 727 with the flaps and slats retracted. The captain continued to pull back on the control column in an attempt to keep the plane's nose raised, which created turbulence over the rear-mounted engines and caused the compressor surges. However, the NTSB concluded that the compressor surges would not have significantly reduced the engines' thrust, and that the plane's failure to gain speed was due to aerodynamic drag on the aircraft due to the high angle of attack, rather than a loss of engine thrust. The NTSB found that the cockpit voice recorder (CVR) recorded the captain and first officer announcing the deployment of the flaps but the sound of flap lever movement is never heard. Based on the aircraft's failure to climb at takeoff speed, its roll instability, the position of the flap's jackscrews in the fully retracted position, and the absence of sounds indicating the flaps or slats were deployed, the NTSB determined that the plane's failure to climb resulted from the flight crew's failure to deploy the flaps and slats as required by the preflight checklist.

Based on the lack of warning sounds on the CVR, the NTSB also determined that the plane's take-off warning system (TOWS), designed to alert the crew if the engines are throttled to take-off power without the flaps and slats being correctly set, failed to alert the pilots to their improper takeoff configuration. The switch that operated the TOWS in the incident aircraft had been previously modified, per Boeing instructions, to prevent nuisance activations during aircraft taxiing. A fleet-wide Boeing 727 inspection, ordered by the Federal Aviation Administration following the Flight 1141 crash, identified 35 anomalies in the TOWS out of 1,190 aircraft examined. The FAA had recommended that the Boeing 727 TOWS be changed from a system activated by the aircraft throttles to one activated by engine pressure ratio (EPR), and while Delta owned Boeing 727s that had an EPR-activated TOWS, these were all aircraft that Delta had acquired from other airlines, and Delta did not convert its own aircraft to an EPR-activated system. The NTSB concluded that the TOWS had not activated because it had an intermittent problem that was not detected or corrected during the aircraft's last maintenance action.

Crew and airline performance
The NTSB investigated the relationship between crew performance and the events in the accident. FAA regulations require a sterile cockpit before takeoff, which prohibits conversation unrelated to the aircraft and the pending flight. However, the CVR recorded the flight crew and a flight attendant talking about the CVR itself, the crash of Continental Airlines Flight 1713, the dating habits of the flight attendants — which First Officer Kirkland grimly and forebodingly joked to Dunn how "in case we [Flight 1141] crash, then the media would have some kind of juicy tidbit" — in addition to the upcoming presidential election, drink mixes, and various other topics. Of the flight crew, the first officer was most actively engaged in these nonessential conversations, with the captain only occasionally joining in. Although the captain did not consistently participate, he also failed to stop the first officer's repeated interruptions and chatter with the flight attendant. The NTSB determined that, if the captain had taken a more active role in managing the cockpit, the accident might have been prevented.

Shortly after an NTSB hearing in which the CVR transcripts were discussed, all three members of the flight crew were fired from Delta. However, the airline itself was also faulted. The NTSB determined that Delta did not insist on standardized crew cockpit management, and that flight crews were allowed significant latitude in their conduct. This lax corporate philosophy contributed to the poor discipline and performance of Flight 1141's flight crew. The NTSB also found that the FAA was already aware of deficiencies in Delta's operations regarding flight crew performance and behavior, and said that neither Delta nor the FAA had taken sufficient corrective action to address the problems.

Probable cause and dissent
On September 26, 1989, the NTSB published its final accident report. In it, the NTSB ultimately determined that there were two probable causes for the accident: (1) inadequate cockpit discipline that resulted in the flight crew's failure to extend the aircraft's flaps and slats to proper take-off configuration, and (2) the failure of the plane's TOWS to sound and alert the crew that their plane was not properly configured for takeoff. Contributing to the crash was Delta's slow implementation of changes to its flight crew management programs, a lack of sufficiently aggressive FAA action to compel Delta to correct known deficiencies, and a lack of sufficient accountability within the FAA's air carrier inspection process.

One member of the safety board, Jim Burnett, dissented from the NTSB's probable cause statement. While Burnett concurred with the accident report's facts and findings, he believed that the actions of the FAA and Delta were direct causes of the accident and not merely contributing factors. Burnett's dissent proposed a probable cause statement that included the two probable causes named in the main report, while adding a third probable cause:

""Also causal to the accident was the failure of Delta Air Lines' management to provide leadership and guidance to its flightcrews through its training and check airmen programs to promote and foster optimum cockpit management procedures, and the failure of the Federal Aviation Administration to correct known deficiencies in the training and check airmen programs of Delta Air Lines.""

Aftermath
Although the NTSB specifically faulted the captain and first officer for the accident, and did not fault Judd (the flight engineer), Judd was unable to find work as a commercial pilot after being fired from Delta. A former Navy pilot, Judd worked as a reserve pilot at Naval Air Station Dallas while appealing his firing, and was later reinstated by Delta.

Media broadcast of the CVR tapes, which demonstrated why the crew failed to extend the airplane's flaps or slats for takeoff, provoked such an outcry by pilots that subsequent releases of CVR data have been restricted by law and carefully vetted by the NTSB. The law prohibits the NTSB from generally releasing CVR transcripts or recordings; while an exception permits the NTSB to release transcripts related to a safety investigation, there is no exception permitting the NTSB to release copies of the actual recordings.

Dramatization
The crash was featured in the third episode of season 18 of Mayday, titled "Deadly Distraction".

title: Delta Air Lines Flight 1141


text:
Matt Wagner

Matt Wagner (born October 9, 1961) is an American comics artist and writer who is best known as the creator of the series Mage and Grendel.

Career
Matt Wagner's first published comic book work was Comico Primer #2 (1982), which was the first appearance of Grendel. In addition to his creator-owned series Mage and Grendel, he has worked on comics featuring the Demon and Batman as well as such titles as Sandman Mystery Theatre. In 1991, he illustrated part of the "Season of Mists" story arc in Neil Gaiman's The Sandman series. He wrote and drew Batman/Superman/Wonder Woman: Trinity a limited series featuring DC's three major heroes in 2003. He followed it with Batman and the Monster Men and Batman and the Mad Monk in 2006.

His other projects include Madame Xanadu for Vertigo, with artist Amy Reeder Hadley. He has produced numerous comics covers, including painted ones for Green Arrow and has written several Green Hornet limited series for Dynamite Entertainment.

Outside comics, Wagner provided art for the 1984 Villains & Vigilantes adventure Battle Above the Earth written by Steven Crow.

In April 2022, Wagner was reported among the more than three dozen comics creators who contributed to Operation USA's benefit anthology book, Comics for Ukraine: Sunflower Seeds, a project spearheaded by IDW Publishing Special Projects Editor Scott Dunbier, whose profits would be donated to relief efforts for Ukrainian refugees resulting from the February 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. Wagner produced a new Grendel story featuring Hunter Rose for the anthology.

Awards and nominations

 * 1988:
 * Nominated for "Best Writer" Eisner Award, for Grendel
 * Won an Inkpot Award
 * 1993:
 * Won "Best Finite Series/Limited Series" Eisner Award, for Grendel: War Child
 * Nominated for "Best Writer/Artist" Eisner Award, for Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight: "Faces"
 * Nominated for "Best Cover Artist" Eisner Award, for Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight: "Faces"
 * Nominated for "Best Inker" Eisner Award, for Grendel: War Child
 * 1995: Nominated for "Best Writer" Eisner Award, for Sandman Mystery Theatre
 * 1999:
 * Won "Best Anthology" Eisner Award, for Grendel: Black, White, and Red
 * Won "Best Short Story" Eisner Award, for "Devil's Advocate" in Grendel: Black, White, and Red #1
 * Nominated for "Best Writer" Eisner Award, for Grendel: Black, White, and Red

Atomeka Press

 * A1 #2 (1989) (story in anthology)

Comic Legends Legal Defense Fund

 * The True North #1 (1988)
 * The True North II #1 (1991)

Comico

 * Grendel #1–3 (1983–1984)
 * Grendel vol. 2 #1–40 (1986–1990)
 * Mage #1–15 (1984–1986)
 * Magebook #1–2 (1985)
 * Primer #2, 5 (1982–1983)
 * Silverback #1–3 (1989)

Dark Horse Comics

 * Dark Horse Presents #40, 45 (1990) (stories in anthology title)
 * Dark Horse Presents Fifth Anniversary Special #1 (1991) (story in anthology title)
 * Grendel Tales: Devil's Choices #1 (1995)
 * Grendel Tales: Devils and Deaths #1 (1994)
 * Grendel Tales: Homecoming #1–3 (1994–1995)
 * Grendel Tales: The Devil's Hammer #1–2 (1994)
 * Grendel: Behold the Devil #0, #1–8 (2007–2008)
 * Grendel: Black, White, and Red #1–4 (1998–1999)
 * Grendel: Devil's Legacy #1–5 (2000)
 * Grendel: War Child #1–10 (1992–1993)
 * The Terminator: One Shot (1991)

DC Comics

 * Batman vol. 3 #54 (2018)
 * The Batman Adventures Annual #1 (1994)
 * Batman and the Mad Monk #1–6 (2006–2007)
 * Batman and the Monster Men #1–6 (2006)
 * Batman Black and White #3 (1996)
 * Batman/Grendel #1–2 (1993)
 * Batman/Grendel vol. 2 #1–2 (1996)
 * Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight #28–30 (1992)
 * Batman/Riddler: The Riddle Factory #1 (1995)
 * Batman/Superman/Wonder Woman: Trinity #1–3 (2003)
 * The Demon vol. 2 #1–4 (1987)
 * The Demon vol. 3 #22 (1992)
 * Doctor Mid-Nite #1–3 (1999)
 * The Sandman #25 (1991)
 * Secret Origins Special #1 (Riddler story) (1989)
 * Who's Who in the DC Universe #4–6, 8, 16 (1990–1992)
 * Who's Who: The Definitive Directory of the DC Universe  #6 (1985)

Vertigo

 * House of Mystery Halloween Annual #1–2 (2009–2010)
 * Madame Xanadu #1–29 (2008–2011)
 * Sandman Midnight Theatre #1 (1995)
 * Sandman Mystery Theatre #1–60, Annual #1 (1993–1998)
 * Vertigo: Winter's Edge #1 (1998)

Dynamite Entertainment

 * Django/Zorro #1–7 (2014–2015)
 * Green Hornet: Year One #1–12 (2010–2011)
 * Grendel vs. The Shadow (2014)
 * The Shadow #100 (2015) (eight page story)
 * The Shadow: The Death of Margo Lane (2016)
 * The Shadow: Year One #1–10 (2013–2014)
 * The Spirit #1–13 (2015–2016)
 * Zorro #1–20 (2008–2010)
 * Zorro Rides Again #1–12 (2011–2012)

Image Comics

 * Mage: The Hero Defined #0–15 (1997–1999)
 * Mage: The Hero Denied #0–15 (2017–2019)

Legendary Comics

 * The Tower Chronicles: Dreadstalker #1–10 (2014–2015)
 * The Tower Chronicles: Geisthawk #1–4 (2012–2013)

Marvel Comics

 * Savage Hulk #1 (1996)
 * Ultimate Marvel Team-Up #1 (2001)
 * Wolverine vol. 2 #9 (one page) (1989)

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Matt Wagner


text:
Ancient murrelet

The ancient murrelet (Synthliboramphus antiquus) is a bird in the auk family. The English term "murrelet" is a diminutive of "murre", a word of uncertain origins, but which may imitate the call of the common guillemot. Ancient murrelets are called "ancient" because they have grey on the back like a shawl, as worn by the elderly.

Taxonomy
The ancient murrelet was formally described in 1789 by the German naturalist Johann Friedrich Gmelin in his revised and expanded edition of Carl Linnaeus's Systema Naturae. He placed it with the auks in the genus Alca and coined the binomial name Alca antiqua. Gmelin based his description on the "ancient auk" that had been described in 1785 by both the English ornithologist John Latham and the Welsh naturalist Thomas Pennant. Both authors mention a specimen in the Leverian Museum and give the location as the west of North America, the Kuril Islands and the Kamchatka Peninsula. The ancient murrelet is now one of five species placed in the genus Synthliboramphus that was introduced in 1837 by the German born naturalist Johann Friedrich von Brandt. The genus name combines Ancient Greek sunthlibō meaning "to compress" with rhamphos meaning "bill". The specific epithet antiquus is Latin meaning "ancient".

Two subspecies are recognised:
 * S. a. antiquus (Gmelin, JF, 1789) – northeast Asia, Aleutian Islands to western Canada
 * S. a. microrhynchos – Stepanyan, 1972 – Commander Islands (eastern Russia)

Description
This small auk species is black on the head, throat and rear neck, grey-backed, and has white underparts. The yellow bill is short and stubby. It has a small rounded black tail. The summer adults have white head streaks giving an aged look and leading to the English name. Other plumages are similar, but lack the crown streaks and black on the throat.

Ancient murrelets tend to bank from side to side in flight to a greater extent than other small auks. They fly with fast wing beats due to their short wings.

Measurements:

 * Length: 7.9 - 9.4 in
 * Weight: 5.4 - 8.8 oz
 * Wingspan: 17.7 - 18.1 in

Distribution and habitat
It breeds from the Yellow Sea (islands off China), through the Russian Pacific coast and the Aleutian Islands to the Haida Gwaii archipelago of British Columbia, where about half of the world population breeds.

Some ancient murrelets migrate 8000 km from Canada to winter near Japan and China, even though the climate is similar at the two ends. It is the only bird known to cross the whole North Pacific. They then start a return trip in February, flying four or five hours a day. Genetic evidence shows that the species originated in Asia and only recently colonized North America, so their migration takes them back to their original homeland. In 2007, surveys off the Olympic Peninsula found unprecedented numbers of Ancient Murrelets with chicks, strongly implying local breeding.

Other ancient murrelets however fly south in winter as far as California, and odd birds are found inland in North America, carried by autumn storms. The most remarkable record of this relatively short-distance Pacific migrant was a bird found on the island of Lundy, in Devon, England in the spring of 1990. Even more remarkably, what was presumably the same bird returned to this British island for the next two springs as well. In 2021 murrelets were sighted in Finland.

Diet and feeding
Like other auks, ancient murrelets forage by swimming underwater using their wings for propulsion. Their diet is poorly known. In winter it consists mainly of crustacea, while in summer both small fish and crustaceans are taken. Based on stable isotope analysis, their diet in Haida Gwaii seems to consist primarily of small mesopelagic fish.

Breeding
Ancient murrelets nest in colonies on islands in the north Pacific, mainly off the coast of North America, but also near Japan and Kamchatka. One of its largest colonies is on Frederick Island in British Columbia. They lay two eggs (sometimes one) in burrows excavated in forest soil among tree roots, under logs or in grass tussocks, occasionally in rock crevices. They arrive at and depart from their nesting grounds at night, presumably to reduce predation, and perhaps for the same reason the young are never fed at the nest, being taken to sea 1–3 days after hatching. The parents and young recognise one another by call and after the chicks have run from the burrow to the sea, they locate their parents by call and the entire family swims immediately out to sea. The family continues to move away from land, usually at night, and will travel a long distance, typically up to 30 mi, for at least twelve hours. After that, the young are fed exclusively at sea by their parents for more than a month. This species spends less time on land than any other bird.

Status and conservation
The ancient murrelet is listed as of 'Special Concern' by the committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada because populations have been greatly reduced over the past century by mammalian predators such as rats introduced to their breeding islands by visiting ships in the 1800s. On one island, the number of breeding pairs was reduced from 200,000 pre-infestation to about 14,000 in the 21st century.

In 2009, a five-year $2.5m Night Birds Returning project was instituted by Parks Canada, Haida Nation, Island Conservation and Coastal Conservation to restore Murrelet population by eradicating rats in the Gwaii Haanas National Park Reserve and Haida Heritage Site. For success, every single rat needs to be killed as a single pregnant rat can repopulate an island in 1–2 years. In 2011, ground-based eradication was implemented on Arichika and Bischoff islands. Phase 2 consisted of using aerial drops of poisoned pellets selectively attractive to rats. This was conducted in fall of 2013 on Murchison and Faraday islands. Continued monitoring is required for two years before an area can be declared rat-free.

title: Ancient murrelet


text:
Ladenschlussgesetz

In the Federal Republic of Germany, the Ladenschlussgesetz or "Shop Closing Law" (abbreviated: LadSchlG) is the federal "blue law" compelling retail stores to close to the public on Sundays and Christian holidays. The Ladenschlussgesetz in its current form was first enacted on 28 November 1956 following pressure from Germany's trade unions; in its last revision (of 2 June 2003), points of sale (Verkaufsstellen) must be closed at any of the following times:

 * 1) On Sundays and public holidays;
 * 2) On working days (Monday through Saturday) before 06:00 and after 20:00;
 * 3) On 24 December before 06:00 and after 14:00 if that date falls on a working day

The law provides differing regulations for pharmacies, petrol stations, shops at train stations and airports, etc.

On 30 June 2006, as part of the Föderalismusreform ("Federalism Reform"), the regulatory responsibility for this area was devolved to the German states. The net effect, although the Federal law technically remains in force, the states are free to determine the opening hours of retail stores in their areas. All states – with the exception of the more conservative Bavaria – have made use of that option.

German states with varying shop opening hours
The states have each adopted individual regulations concerning opening hours on Sundays and public holidays. Some continue to observe the existing Federal rules, while others have liberalized them somewhat, although the general Federal ban concerning opening on Sundays and holidays remains in effect, owing to a provision in the German constitution recognizing Sunday as a day of rest and a corresponding decision of the Federal Constitutional Court (Bundesverfassungsgericht) on 9 June 2004.

24/6 scheme
(Shops may be open as desired at any hour (day or night) Monday through Saturday)

 * Baden-Württemberg     Effective date: 6 March 2007
 * Berlin                Effective date: 14 November 2006
 * Brandenburg           Effective date: 1 December 2006
 * Bremen Effective date: 1 April 2007
 * Hamburg               Effective date: 1 January 2007
 * Hesse                 Effective date: 1 December 2006
 * Lower Saxony          Effective date: 21 November 2006
 * North Rhine-Westphalia Effective date: 21 November 2006
 * Schleswig-Holstein    Effective date: 1 December 2006

24/5 scheme
(Shops may be open as desired at any hour (day or night) Monday through Friday, with restrictions on Saturday opening hours)

Shops may be open until 10 pm on Saturdays.
 * Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania Effective date: 2 July 2007

Shops may be open until 8 pm on Saturdays; rules for Sundays and holidays follow the existing Federal law.
 * Saxony-Anhalt Effective date: 30 November 2006 and
 * Thuringia Effective date: 24 November 2006

Other schemes
Shops may be open Monday through Saturday from 6 am to 10 pm each day.
 * Rhineland-Palatinate  Effective date: 29 November 2006 and
 * Saxony Effective date: 1 April 2007

(Existing) Federal shop-opening scheme

 * Bavaria
 * Saarland (minor modifications concerning opening on Sundays and holidays)

title: Ladenschlussgesetz


text:
Woolco

Woolco was an American-based discount retail chain. It was founded in 1962 in Columbus, Ohio, by the F. W. Woolworth Company. It was a full-line discount department store unlike the five-and-dime Woolworth stores which operated at the time. At its peak, Woolco had hundreds of stores in the US, as well as in Canada and the United Kingdom. While the American stores were closed in 1983, the chain remained active in Canada until it was sold in 1994 to rival Walmart, which was looking to enter the Canadian market. All of the former UK Woolco stores were sold by Kingfisher, which had bought the UK Woolworth business, to Gateway which subsequently sold them to Asda.

Creation
The creation of Woolco coincided with the expansion of suburbia. Woolworth's flagship stores were still doing well, but the company wanted to tap into the growing discount department store market without diluting its dominant position in the variety store business. The first Woolco store was located in Columbus, Ohio. By 1966, there were 18 in the United States and nine in Canada. Plans were for 30 stores to be added per year. This led to tremendous growth as over 300 Woolco stores opened up across North America by the mid-1970s. Some stores were converted from regular Woolworth stores, including the location at Westland Mall in West Burlington, Iowa.

The company experimented with both Woolco and a more downscale merchandising unit called Worth Mart in the mid-1960s. Woolco was the eventual winner with customers, and the Worth Mart stores were folded into Woolco's store base by the 1970s.

At the outset, Woolco stores were considered by the company to be "promotional department stores," with expanded product lines and other amenities not typically found at namesake Woolworth stores.

Many locations contained Red Grille restaurants, a cafeteria-style outlet, and the food areas sold popcorn, real milkshakes, and other food.

A number of Woolco stores were opened in the United Kingdom during the same period, one of which in Bournemouth – opened on 29 October 1968 – was in 1970 the largest store on one floor in Britain, with an area of 114,000 square feet and parking space for 1,250 cars.

In November 1971, four new stores were opened simultaneously across Canada (including at Marlborough Mall) bringing the total in that country to 47.

Demise
The typical Woolco store was well over 100000 sqft, which was quite large for a discount store of that era. Many of its departments (e.g., shoes and jewelry) were leased to third-party operators, a common practice among early discounters.

Starting in the late 1970s, Woolworth enacted a cost-saving plan for Woolco that included a reduction in floor space for the largest locations, the elimination of most leased departments and an expansion into smaller markets with stores as small as 60000 sqft. During this period, the excess space in some larger Woolco stores went to Woolworth-owned J. Brannam.

J. Brannam, short for "Just Brand Names", was an off-price clothing retailer owned by F.W. Woolworth. Plans for the chain were first made public via a press release in July 1979, which stated the chain would open its first locations in the Oklahoma City and Dallas metro markets, in which there would be three and five locations in each area respectively. All eight of these prototype J. Brannam locations opened on October 24, 1979. Rapid expansion began and by its peak in 1982 the chain had stores as far west as Arizona and as far east as North Carolina. This expansion soon proved too strenuous for the chain, and all locations were shuttered by December 1985, citing "increased competition in discount retailing".

By 1979, it became clear that the earlier cost-saving plan would not be enough to save Woolco from failure, so Woolworth combined the discount store operating unit with its variety stores and began to close stores in unprofitable markets including Chicago.

Closure
On September 24, 1982, Woolco announced it would close all of its United States stores. The final Woolco store to have a grand opening in the U.S. was the September 29, 1982, launch of the Boutte, Louisiana, store which was five days after the chain's announcement of closing all stores. By January 1983, all 336 stores were shuttered. Woolco's inventory was valued at approximately $1 billion, making Woolco's liquidation the largest in United States history at the time. However, the Canadian division of approximately 120 stores remained open.

In 1982, the UK stores were spun off along with the British Woolworths chain in the same year. in 1986, Woolworths sold the Woolco stores to Gateway, exiting them out of their ownership. Gateway then soon sold the stores again to Asda in 1988. In the UK, Woolworths' then-parent company Kingfisher plc attempted to revive the style of Woolco with the Big W chain in 1999, which was successful but suffered when Woolworths split into its own company in 2001, and in 2004, Woolworths Group PLC scrapped the Big W chain and sold some of the stores to supermarket chains Asda and Tesco. Woolworths rebranded the Big W stores they kept under their own name and they remained until Woolworths' administration in 2008.

In 1990, 26 Woolworth stores in Canada were converted to Woolco because of their larger size. On January 14, 1994, in order to repay the $1.7 billion debt incurred from international specialty store expansion, the Woolworth Corporation sold most of the Woolco Canada stores to Walmart. Walmart did not acquire the Woolco stores that were either unionized or had downtown locations. Some Woolco stores were sold and re-opened as Zellers stores; when Zellers liquidated, some of those stores were later sold to Target Canada, which ceased operations itself in 2015 following bankruptcy.

Canada
In a smaller, less crowded retail market, Woolco had a bigger impact in Canada than it did in the US. The Woolco was re-branded F. W. Woolworth stores in the 1980s, but Woolworth-branded stores had been in Canada around 1904. There were 160 Woolco stores in Canada at dissolution, the chain having survived another 11 years in Canada after the US closure and before being bought out by Walmart Canada. They were so well known that Canadian songwriters Leon Dubinsky and Max MacDonald even wrote a popular song called "Working at the Woolco Manager Trainee Blues" (1977). During the 1970s and 1980s, the Canadian stores were well known for their monthly "$1.44 Days", wherein numerous items were sold at a price of $1.44 CAD. Competitors Woodward's & Eaton's ran "$1.49 Days" usually the first Monday each month. Most stores also contained an automotive and tire service department. Most stores in Canada had an in-store restaurant section. These restaurants were named Red Grille or Strawberry Street Cafeteria, except in the province of Quebec where they were named Café Rouge or Moisson d'Or.

title: Woolco


text:
Talk:Rich Text Format

DEC v.s. Microsoft
The first paragraph states "developed by vyas in 1987", whereas the "information box" in the top-right states "Developed by: Microsoft". This seems inconsistent. --

DEC had nothing to do with the development of the RTF format. It was entirely a Microsoft development effort within the Microsoft Word team. Richard Brodie, Charles Simonyi, and I (David Luebbert) were responsible for the design of the RTF 1.0 format.

The first RTF implementation was shipped with Microsoft Word 3.0 for Macintosh in early 1987. I wrote the first RTF reader and writer for that release of Word. RTF format was listed as a Save As format in that version of Word. RTF files that were opened by MacWord 3.0 were automatically translated into a Word document.

In Mac Word 3.0 and its descendents (all subsequent versions of MacWord and Windows Word), RTF was used as an interlingua for translation to and from other word processing file formats. Foreign file formats (PC Word, Mac Write, DisplayWrite, WordPerfect) were translated into an RTF stream which was fed into the builtin RTF reader to produce a Word format document. When translating Word documents into a foreign format, the Word document was translated into an RTF stream which was passed to a translation to produce a foreign format. With this design it became possible to produce plug-in modules for translating from Word to a foreign format and vice versa, making it unnecessary to link rarely used large translation routines into the main Word executable. This design also made it possible for third parties to ship translation packages on their own without Microsoft's involvement. DLuebbert 20:43, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

 * Hi David, the "DEC" involvement was added on 7 June 2007 by, who revised it on 4 October 2007, presumably based on information you provided above. What we really need is reliable sources to verify the early history of the file format.  We have a gap between 1987 and 1992, the date on the RTF 1.0 spec.  Was the RTF file format static during that period ? John Vandenberg 03:31, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

 * Hi John, I did provide with that information and I thank him for making that revision,

 * From the 1992 date I'm guessing that what you label as the RTF 1.0 spec corresponds to what was shipped with Windows Word 2.0.

 * It was always a requirement that the entirety of structures and properties that could be stored in a Microsoft Word doc format file would have an equivalent representation in RTF. Whenever a major architectural change was made to the doc format, RTF was changed in parallel so that the newly added structures could be accurately translated.

 * RTF was always backwardly compatible with previous version of Word, so that any new structure descriptions or tags could be ignored by old versions and still produce a best possible translation of the new format.

 * Whenever a new structure declaration was introduced, we required that it begin with a '{' character followed by a /* tag followed by the structure tag (eg./table, /field). The /* instructed the reader to skip to the '}' character that matches with the opening '{' character and ignore all intervening text if it could not recognize the newly introduced structure tag. This prevented mysterious uninterpretable text (like WinWord 1.0 field declarations) from appearing in documents produced by back-level RTF readers.

 * The initial spec (I don't remember the version numbering scheme we used back then) was first published a few months after Mac Word 3.0 was released in 1987. It was provided to development houses that wished to prepare translators from RTF to other word processing formats. The spec was revised whenever a new version of Word was released. The tables implementation used in Mac Word and Win Word was introduced in MacWord 4.0, so /table and all of the table description tags were added to the spec at that time. This would have been 1989. WinWord 1.0 shipped the first version that used Word's field constructs, so field descriptions were added to the spec at that time. This would have been 1990.  MacWord 5.0 was the first version of Word that allowed embedded objects from the earliest implementation of OLE, so the spec was revved to add object descriptions after that version shipped. This would have been late 1991 or early 1992.
 * DLuebbert 03:21, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

 * The spec we currently link to for Version 1.0 is identified as "GC0165: RICH-TEXT FORMAT (RTF) SPECIFICATION". As you have indicated there were changes between "Mac Word 3.0 RTF" and that "Version 1.0", it would be good to put our hands on any published information regarding RTF between those two.  Perhaps similar text documents accompanied the releases, or documentation shared with business partners interested in writing import/output filters.  Thanks for your help, John Vandenberg 06:12, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

 * So the information about a DEC connection on (nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Rich-text) this site, for example, is incorrect.Rick Jelliffe (talk) 06:43, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

WordPad
It is my understanding that the opposite is true. WordPad used to save as .DOC by default and now saves .RTF

 * I believe you are right and have edited accordingly. I know for a fact that WordPad once supported the Word 6.0 format, but as for defaulting to it, I'm not sure. Can anyone on an older version of Windows verify? --Mark Yen 04:44, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

Wordpad.exe 5.0.2195.6991, found in an up-to-date Win2K, defaults to saving RTF, but will save as Word 6.0. Wordpad.exe 5.00.1691.1, found on my official 98SE upgrade CD, defaults to saving Word 6.0, but will save as RTF

Test method: close all instances of Wordpad, open Wordpad, enter text, save it as a text file (*.txt), close all instances of Wordpad, open Wordpad, enter text, format the text, select File Save - what format does it offer?

Neither version appears to remember what type of file you saved as previously.

24.17.178.36 (talk) 02:53, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Linux
is rtf format widely supported on Linux platforms?

 * RTF is supported under Linux by Ted (word processor) and Abiword. I am puzzled why these are not listed here.

where does Apple's .rtf format fit in? (rtf is the standard format for rich text in Mac OS X, in its default text editor TextEdit.)

what's the common rich text format used in linuxes? (if there is one at all)

thanks Xah P0lyglut 07:19, 2003 Nov 29 (UTC)

Probably the best example of Linux standard "rich text" is HTML. But there are editors for Microsoft RTF as well. PeteVerdon

Yes, and HTML is widely-used today, probably more than RTF. I've added a reference to HTML. Perhaps we should include a link to the PDF format, as well, since it is similar too? dionyziz 18:49, Feb 13, 2005 (UTC)

 * DocBook

Btw rtf is supported by most Linux word processors, including OOo. --grin ✎ 10:40, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

RTF code
Perhaps we schould include the basic RTF code (for bold/italic/underline and font face/font size)? dionyziz 18:49, Feb 13, 2005 (UTC)

 * Well, perhaps not. The official specification is already linked for RTF authors; and 'basic RTF codes' would serve no purpose for non-authors. This kind of information is just not encyclopedic. —Herbee 19:23, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Out-of-Date
RTF Spec for Word 97 -- link appears to be out-of-date

A link to the RTF v1.3 spec -- link yields an access denied

Microsoft refers to a March 1987 RTF specification—presumably a pre-1.0 version. Does anyone have access to the actual text? —Herbee 19:18, 25 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Does it support images? What kind?
Does it support images? What kind?

Yes, it does support images. However, I don't know which format they use to store them... dionyziz 18:20, Feb 13, 2005 (UTC)

Added information regarding image support (only the fact that it supports images, actually). Perhaps we should add more? dionyziz 18:49, Feb 13, 2005 (UTC)

The image format seems to be a “metafile” of some sort, though I don’t know if it’s the same as WMF (Windows Metafile). Upon doing a Paste Special in OpenOffice Writer, the dialog box shows “GDI Metafile” and “Picture (Metafile)” as options. As for the details of that format, they’re simple to figure out by opening the RTF with a text editor: the data is encoded entirely in hex digits in ASCII, with a palette coming first if the image has one, and then the image data (palette index numbers or RGB triplets). It seems only 8-bit palettes are supported, and whatever values the image palette hasn't filled are filled with values from the Websafe palette. I think this is enough information about RTF image support, with the exception of the actual name of that format. --Shlomital 20:49, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

 * According to the spec linked to in the article it supports a number of metafile formats and in addition PNG, JPEG and macpict (QuickDraw). Mlewan 19:09, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

 * This needs to be updated as there are problems with RTF compressing images. If you add a 100kb image, it often bloats the rtf to over 3 meg! --78.33.40.66 (talk) 16:08, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

 * Yes it supports two kinds of metafile, the .WMF kind and the .EMF kind, as in what they call enhanced metafile. These files are a basic Windows format, albeit a bit ageing now. The Windows API supports these files, so you can draw an image with PlayEnhMetaFile function for EMF and that seems to also work for WMF standard that Microsoft say one should not use as the EMF version is better. They bloat out the files because Word writes it in hexadecimal and so you lose half the bitspace as RTF is 7-bit and then MS writes it twice! That's for backwards compatibility apparently. A lot of RTF is redundant because of compatibility provision, but this really becomes noticeable with images. Rows in tables are also written twice, but you only lose a few hundred wasted bytes, not megabytes.79.67.251.15 (talk) 20:52, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

Tools
Has someone made an editor/tool for rtf that shows the markup directly like notepad, but helps out with things like intellisense/autocomplete/keyword insight popups? I.E. not a wysiwyg editor like a word processor, but more of a tool for rtf application developers a bit like how visual studio works for HTML.

 * Well, jEdit has RTF syntax highlighting. —Caesura(t) 02:51, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Unicode support
A Unicode character escape needs to be followed by the character in the current code page which most closely represents it, and the code point also needs to be represented as a 16 bit signed decimal integer. I have corrected this information as the previous version was misleading. Jammycakes 13:32, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

 * If you have used \uc0, then you don't follow a Unicode character escape with a substitution character.--Jwwalker 21:18, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

 * Does the Unicode format really take a "signed" decimal integer? How can a negative value possibly be valid? It would be my guess that unsigned would be the correct adjective. —Ksn 17:39, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

 * Yes, it is signed, according to the RTF specification. Values greater than 32767 have to be specified as a negative number eg 0xFEFF would be -257. The point about the \uc0 is correct though. Jammycakes 18:26, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

 * Thanx. Leave it to Microsoft to specify code points with negative numbers. —Ksn 22:58, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Open standard?
Is Rich Text Format an open standard? --Aeon17x 04:22, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

 * I'd say it meets the definition of open standard given at the beginning of that page, but does not meet the EU definition given later on that page. By the way, RTF is mentioned on the open format page, but it is not clear to me whether it was saying that RTF is an open format or not. --Jwwalker 06:52, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
 * It is not a standard (as defined by a standards body), but is defined by a single company. The text claims patents may be involved, so it isn't free.  I removed the reference to "free text format". --NealMcB (talk) 03:59, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
 * At the Open format page, under the Examples of Open Formats and then under Text, RTF is listed as a free format. Which one is incorrect?--Dbmikus (talk) 03:00, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Regardless of whether it is open or not, the info box back-end uses the term "free" and the front end uses the term "open". These are quite different concepts and it is very confusing. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 210.48.101.110 (talk) 22:29, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

My understanding of 'open standard' should mean that it is listed and specified in the Internet's RFC, which it is not, surprisingly (to me) I thought it was. It is mentioned there of course -- 2829  VC 08:57, 6 December 2013 (UTC)

Human-readable
I think the information on human-readability is obsolete. Yes, RTF is still human-readable, but so are most of the other formats in use today (including .doc, .odt and .html). Usually the formats of today are XML-based. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by AVainio (talk • contribs).
 * It is still important to mention this as the format was designed to be human-readable in an era when that was not the norm, especially for Microsoft. Would the following be better:
 * Unlike most of the word processing formats designed in that era, RTF is human-readable.
 * btw, .doc is still a closed binary format. .docx is the extension for Microsoft Office Open XML, the human-readable replacement. Jayvdb 13:03, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

 * What other word processing formats are not human readable? What other word processing format designed in that era were not human readable? SPRINT, Wordstar, RTF.... markup languages were the norm. "Unlike most word processing formats" needs to be justified.203.206.162.148 (talk) 10:59, 11 March 2009 (UTC).

 * There was an early "Wordstar" era and now a modern XML era -- but in between was a period of almost 20 years when the default was to be not human readable... AnonMoos (talk) 00:26, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

 * OK. The early "Wordstar" era overlapped the RTF era. RTF was a product of the mid 1980's, released in 1987. SGML was standardized in 1986. HTML was named in 1991. So human readable formats were still in common use, and were still commonly being designed. Given that RTF was cross-platform and cross-application, how about this: ''Like all document interchange formats at the time, RTF was designed to be human readable'. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.206.162.148 (talk) 08:18, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

 * Not sure what that means -- RFT-DCA was not human-readable, and the native file formats of the majority of late-1980s and 1990s word processors were not human-readable (and the native file formats were what was used for most "document interchange" in businesses at the time). For that matter RTF is only "human-readable" if there's light formatting and mainly ASCII characters used -- if there's embedded bitmaps or non-Latin text, then it's quite unreadable in a basic text editor... AnonMoos (talk) 10:46, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

 * The document markup formats (SPRINT, Wordstar, HTML, SGML, RTF) from the RTF era were human readable, and the RTF from that era was human-readable too -- it was later versions of Word which generated the massive header blocks which made reading and editing Word RTF so difficult. Why bring the 1990's into it? RTF is the source format of Microsoft Help files. It was replaced by HTML for Compiled Help Files. RTF is exactly part of the SGML, HTML era. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.206.162.148 (talk) 06:02, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

 * I don't know what "SPRINT" is, but SGML was a somewhat esoteric/enterprise product -- mainly used by university scholars and on mainframes at large corporations -- before the rise of HTML, ca. 1993/1994. Wordstar was already strongly declining by the time that HTML really started to catch on, so I don't understand the expression "Wordstar-HTML era"... AnonMoos (talk) 07:56, 12 December 2012 (UTC)
 * SPRINT was a word processor. SGML was the parent of HTML. Wordstar-SGML-SPRINT-HTML were human-readable word processing formats in use/designed around the time RTF was designed/in use. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.206.162.148 (talk) 05:09, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

RichEdit?
I noticed there is nothing on Wikipedia about the Rich Edit controls in Windows. In my memory, they're supposed to handle RTF, aren't they ?

Rich
The article should define where the word "Rich" comes from. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.166.80.132 (talk) 17:35, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Well, while I'm here (to bring up a different point), I'll hazard a guess as to where "rich" came from. I pretty strongly suspect that the rich is intended to indicate that rtf provides for text that is "richer" than, for example, some prior formats, like, for example plain (ASCII) text.

Exactly what existed before, or what features form the basis for calling it rich, I'm not short, but I would guess that it may included things like the ability to display bold, italic, ... fonts, and the ability to "declare" a portion of text to be a paragraph and be formatted accordingly, and similarly for maybe bulleted and numbered lists, and whatever. So "rich" might be considered a synonym for "fancy".-Rhkramer (talk) 18:27, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Influence of the Navy?
I have this recollection that RTF either originated with the (US) Navy, or maybe was used heavily by the navy in the early days.

I can't remember exactly why I think that, but I seem to recall that some of the choices for saving (and opening) documents might have included options with both the word "navy" and the acronym "RTF" in very early versions of MS Word--I probably mean before Word version 3.0.

Can anybody shed any more light on that?-Rhkramer (talk) 18:27, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Oops--I'm not 100% sure yet, but maybe I was thinking of "Navy DIF" (Document Interchange Format). BTW, there doesn't seem to be a Wikipedia article about Navy DIF.-Rhkramer (talk) 18:52, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

 * Data Interchange Format? -- AnonMoos (talk) 08:05, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

Falsehood in character encoding section
The character encoding section of the article begins, "RTF is an 8-bit format. That would limit it to ASCII, ...." This is a falsehood, since ASCII is a 7-bit specification, and numerous characters sets, including all the ISO 8859-* sets, use 8-bit codes. Many of them (including the 8859-* sets) coincide with ASCII for the code points < 128, but EBCDIC, for example, doesn't. I don't know what it should say, but I know what it says now is incorrect. Can someone please correct it? —Largo Plazo (talk) 19:15, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

 * Actually, RTF generally avoids including hi-bit (128-255) characters in the file... AnonMoos (talk) 00:29, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Internet media type
Shouldn't text/rtf read application/rtf? http://www.fileformat.info/info/mimetype/text/rtf refers to something different than the RTF as mentioned in http://www.fileformat.info/info/mimetype/application/rtf (on iana.org, http://www.iana.org/assignments/media-types/text/rtf downloads some email message with the same content as given on FileFormat.info)

Intellectual property
The page currently says "The intellectual property of the format belongs to Microsoft." This seems too vague: are there patents involved? The Microsoft docs don't seem to mention any. Dmurdoch (talk) 10:53, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

Microsoft help (HLP) files
RTF was the source format for the MS Help Compiler - which rendered subscripts and superscripts as hyperlinks and index entries. So all Help files were written in RTF. The HLP format was replaced with Compiled HTML (CHM), which uses HTML as the markup language. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.206.162.148 (talk) 07:26, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

Interoperability: RTF vs DOC
The article states: Nevertheless, the RTF format is consistent enough from computer to computer to be considered highly portable and moderately acceptable for cross-platform use.[who?]

Can somebody provide a link to a systematic study? I have tried several times to deal with documents generated by MS Word 2003, containing complex tables. These files were either saved as DOC or RTF. I opened these files with OpenOffice3.X using the native OO import filters. Result: the OO import filters work better with binary doc, than with RTF. That is why I am sceptical about the above statement.Oub (talk) 10:04, 11 June 2010 (UTC):
 * I think the keywords here are "moderately acceptable" and "complex tables". Tables are notoriously difficult to handle in different applications. Apple's TextEdit lived happily without them for several years, in spite of having RTF as native format. Copying and pasting tables between browsers, Word, and other applications often renders strange results. As the text says "moderately" acceptable, I think it is correct. --Mlewan (talk) 11:13, 11 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Original RTF was portable. I could edit the files by hand and easily see what I was doing. Files generated by MS Word 95,97 where much more complex, and I doubt that 2000,2002,2003 got any easier. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.206.162.148 (talk) 06:08, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

Character Encoding
The article states: RTF is an 8-bit format. That would limit it to ASCII

However, ASCII is a 7-bit format. For one, the 8-bit format means a limit to ANSI, but that's still incorrect because being an 8-bit format means you're "restricted" to any of the many 8-bit character encodings used throughout the world. The section is ill-written anyway, as it first describes RTF as 8 bit, then says it's not been 8-bit until v1.5, then goes on that most RTF are actually 7-bit. --Mike Kamermans (12 August 2010) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.121.34.89 (talk) 18:37, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

Minor Terminology Point
There was a sentence which said: "Also typically supported are left-, center-, and right- justified text." I changed the word "justified" to "aligned" because anybody with real knowledge of traditional typographic terminology knows there is no such thing as (for example) "right-justified text". The term "justified" means (simultaneously) flush-left and flush-right. It has no other meaning. Text can be flush-left, centered, flush-right, or justified. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.243.14.44 (talk) 18:24, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

 * In my field, the word "Discrimination" has a specific technical meaning, sort of related to what it means in normal conversation. And "Discrimination" is always good, and the more of it the better. This caused a problem for me whenever I heard phrases like "sexual discrimination" or "racial discrimination". I always had to stop and think about what the phrase meant, and I could never use a phrase like that in speach: the cognitive disconnect was just too great.
 * Some people I know are lawyers. The term "duplicity" is a technical term in English law, and means something only vaguely related to what it means in normal English or American conversation.

 * However, I never made the mistake of thinking that other people should use those words in the specific technical sense that (respectively) engineers or lawyers would use them.
 * Justified is a perfectly good English word. The fact that it has a specific meaning to you does not justify editing it out of articles where it is used with a related but different meaning.

 * James 2:24 "You see that a person is justified by what he does and not by faith alone." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.206.162.148 (talk) 05:58, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

 * Yes, words with specific meanings in specialist fields shouldn't have such definitions forced upon the outside world. However, this particular context clearly is typographical in nature, and should conform to typographical terminology at least when such terminology will not cause confusion. 143.92.1.33 (talk) 00:31, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

Updated cite link
Hi,

I changed the link http://archive.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/e-government/resources/handbook/html/4-3.asp into http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20100807034701/http://archive.cabinetoffice.gov.uk as the former now suggest to refer to the latter. --77.198.58.56 (talk) 14:15, 12 January 2011 (UTC) (|Hibou57)

RTF is equivalent to HTML?
I removed the following unreferenced claim from the "Criticism" section: This wasn't an issue for good developers, though, because RTF only has 14 codes, with "\i " being equivalent to HTML's "<i>," with other codes operating more or less as HTML: "\par" for "<br>" and "\tab" for tab.

There is no reference for this claim in the article. I don't think this claim is correct. The RTF specification was published much earlier than any final HTML specification. The RTF 1.0 specification itself defined cca 500 control words. Later versions defined several hundred new control words. RTF is very different from HTML. --89.173.65.92 (talk) 14:32, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

In defense of Criticism section
Wikipedia is not here to polish the reputation of Microsoft at the cost of needless historical revisionism. We are not beholden to billionaires Gates, Ballmer, Simonyi or to 'research' funding by Microsoft or IBM or Siemens as are many academics in CS.

To remove the criticism section would be to whitewash the contentious actions and their consequences which are historical fact known to those of us who worked through that period in IT.

There are a great many articles in WP where NPOV is not impaired by a section of criticism and objections and this should be one.

G. Robert Shiplett 13:13, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

 * Which is fine, but it currently doesn't cite sources for most of the content. It looks like original research, which is not welcome. - Rushyo  Talk  13:19, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

 * As of today, it cites as well as anything does. The tag claiming it is NPOV is bullshit. The claim that it needs to be merged into the rest of the article is similarly asinine. I have removed that tag. Further, I think the original research tag on this article is wrong as well. Everyone loves to throw these tags around anywhere they don't like something, and they're so rarely justified. Just another way of spreading FUD... 199.19.252.13 (talk) 18:43, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

 * I don't think the section violates NPOV, but... it contains criticisms of Microsoft's practices and transparency, not the format itself.  If Microsoft never intended it to be an open standard, then there needs to be some justification as to why their behavior was wrong.  You could make the case that everything Microsoft does creates a standard whether they want it to or not and work from there. - Richfife (talk) 19:26, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

Mistakes in the Specification
I’ve been writing an RTF reader and writer (RTF 1.6), and I’ve found numerous mistakes in the specification, where some are quite obviously someone getting a control word wrong, as in a typographical mistake, but others need a bit of thinking about and there are definite differences between what say Word 2000 outputs and what the specification says. For examples some control words are logical, where you get two general types, either it is present or missing as one representation of a logical parameter, and then with others you get a numerical value of zero or one after the control word. You are then left wondering what to do. Do you make it Word compatible or do you make it compatible with the specification where these are different? I’ve counted probably a dozen or so instances so far. Out of those there are one or two where the spec. leaves you with ambiguity. This maybe why users find computers misbehaving, say if a writer writes it one way and a reader is expecting something different. The spec is also poorly written in the grammatical sense. Having said that, the system does have its merits, but I feel with all the backward compatibility it can be a bit verbose and more complicated than it would otherwise be. 79.67.241.98 (talk) 05:02, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

 * The spec has plenty of mistakes, though in my experience the developers of other word processors tend to choose "do what MS Word does", and regard the spec (and Microsoft's Office file format specs in general) as fiction with an unreliable narrator. Not sure how we'd go about properly sourcing such an assertion, though - David Gerard (talk) 12:01, 15 November 2014 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 2 one external links on Rich Text Format. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Corrected formatting/usage for http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?familyid=E5B8EBC2-6AD6-49F0-8C90-E4F763E3F04F&displaylang=en
 * Corrected formatting/usage for http://www.sans.org/security-resources/macro.php

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true or failed to let others know (documentation at ).

Cheers.—cyberbot II  Talk to my owner :Online 01:11, 1 April 2016 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 1 one external link on Rich Text Format. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added tag to http://www.linux.com/archive/feed/47307
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20110724111954/http://www.keyongtech.com/2560234-ole-object-bitmap-representation to http://www.keyongtech.com/2560234-ole-object-bitmap-representation

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true or failed to let others know (documentation at ).

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 21:17, 20 July 2016 (UTC)

RTF is Virus Safe?
What are the unstated assumptions here? My understanding is RTF is 100% safe if opened in safe apps such as MS Wordpad or Jarte. The rare problems seems to be vulnerable (unpatched? buggy?) programs open to exploits, not .RTF. For examples, these multi-function, "do-all" problematic apps: "RTF files can carry malware; sometimes malicious files in RTF format are renamed with the .DOC extension. One exploit attacking a vulnerability was patched in Microsoft Word in April 2015.[53]

"Since 2014 there have been malware RTF files embedding OpenXML exploits (.DOCX file with ZIP header, renamed with RTF extension) "to create a multi-exploit master key to cover a number of recent patched exploits in one RTF with low AV detection".[54]"

Say what? It seems the topic should be patches in Microsoft Word, not problems with RTF. This is confusing, and needs to be made explicit. If a program/app attempts to execute code in a simple .RTF, (or .TXT, .JPG, etc..) that is the problem (a serious security bug) of the app, not the file format. (.RTF is safe, .EXE is not, due to how the OS should handle them.) This should be enunciated, not the quoted implications of format problems. The assumption seems to be that the app's screw-ups are OK or normal, therefore call RTF in general, unsafe. Please explicitly put blame where due, not just list outside technical problems within an RTF context. Thanks!  --2602:306:CFCE:1EE0:4CFD:EC6D:1B18:1149 (talk) 17:03, 19 May 2020 (UTC) Just Saying

 * "RTF files can carry malware;" ??  One can embed pictures and perhaps other binary objects into .RTF files.  Perhaps malware too? However Wordpad does not open them when opening the RTF.  The operator must click on the embedded icon.  If that's what's meant, it's too vague & should be clarified.  It sounds dangerous, but its only an inert container...that is, not safe.  They are not the same.  --2602:306:CFCE:1EE0:4CFD:EC6D:1B18:1149 (talk) 17:27, 19 May 2020 (UTC) Just Saying

title: Talk:Rich Text Format