unrtf has no way to disable the header that's printed out

[Rory McCann]

Binary package hint: unrtf

I created a simple RTF file in OpenOffice with one word "testing". I then used unrtf to convert it to text on the command line like so:

unrtf -t text test.rtf 2>/dev/null

(Note the 2>/dev/null is to work around LP #489122)

this is output I got:

### Translation from RTF performed by UnRTF, version 0.19.2
### For information about this marvellous program,
### please go to http://www.gnu.org/software/unrtf/unrtf.html
### document uses ANSI character set
### font table contains 4 fonts total

AUTHOR: Rory McCann
### creaton date: 27 November 2009 09:54
### revision date:
### last printed:
### comments: StarWriter

-----------------
testing

The stuff before the "----------" is header stuff about the file, it is not in the RTF file itself. There should be a way to turn this off. I, the user, want to get the plain text equivilant of this file, all these #### lines are not in the original file, so there should be some other way to just get What You See In OpenOffice.

ProblemType: Bug
Architecture: i386
Date: Fri Nov 27 09:59:38 2009
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 9.10
Package: unrtf 0.19.3-1.1
ProcEnviron:
 PATH=(custom, user)
 LANG=en_IE.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.31-15.50-generic
SourcePackage: unrtf
Uname: Linux 2.6.31-15-generic i686
XsessionErrors:
 (gnome-settings-daemon:1841): GLib-CRITICAL **: g_propagate_error: assertion `src != NULL' failed
 (gnome-settings-daemon:1841): GLib-CRITICAL **: g_propagate_error: assertion `src != NULL' failed
 (nautilus:2067): Eel-CRITICAL **: eel_preferences_get_boolean: assertion `preferences_is_initialized ()' failed
 (polkit-gnome-authentication-agent-1:2136): GLib-CRITICAL **: g_once_init_leave: assertion `initialization_value != 0' failed
 (gnome-panel:1940): Gtk-WARNING **: gtk_widget_size_allocate(): attempt to allocate widget with width -5 and height 24

[neuromancer (neuromancer)]

Hi.
I use unrtf in a project with Lucene and Zend framework.
To throw away the header part, i use this workaround:
unrtf --text --nopict filename.rtf | awk 'NR == 1, /-----------------/ { next } { print }' > outfile

[Olly Betts (ojwb)]

This is fixed in 0.21.3:

    - added '--quiet' flag which suppresses leading comments in output

[Alexandrosg (alexandrosg)]

The quiet flag appears to do nothing on my system, with version 0.21.3

[Hamish Low (sub-acoustic)]

The quiet flag also not working for me on 0.21.3

[Wim Feijen (wim-go2people)]

On Ubuntu 16.04.2 LTS, unrtf version 0.21.9 --quiet does not work for me as well.

unrtf result.rtf --quiet --text
### Translation from RTF performed by UnRTF, version 0.21.9

-----------------
LEDES98BI V2[]INVOICE_DATE|INVOICE_NUMBER|CLIENT_ID|LAW_FIRM_MATTER_ID|INVOICE_TOTAL|BILLING_START_DATE|BILLING_END_DATE|INVOICE_DESCRIPTION|LINE_ITEM_NUMBER|EXP/FEE/INV_ADJ_TYPE|LINE_ITEM_NUMBER_OF_UNITS|LINE_ITEM_ADJUSTMENT_AMOUNT|LINE_ITEM_TOTAL|LINE_ITEM_DATE|LINE_ITEM_TASK_CODE|LINE_ITEM_EXPENSE_CODE|LINE_ITEM_ACTIVITY_CODE|TIMEKEEPER_ID|LINE_ITEM_DESCRIPTION|LAW_FIRM_ID|LINE_ITEM_UNIT_COST|TIMEKEEPER_NAME|TIMEKEEPER_CLASSIFICATION|CLIENT_MATTER_ID|PO_NUMBER|CLIENT_TAX_ID|MATTER_NAME|INVOICE_TAX_TOTAL|INVOICE_NET_TOTAL|INVOICE_CURRENCY|TIMEKEEPER_LAST_NAME|TIMEKEEPER_FIRST_NAME|ACCOUNT_TYPE|LAW_FIRM_NAME|LAW_FIRM_ADDRESS_1|LAW_FIRM_ADDRESS_2|LAW_FIRM_CITY|LAW_FIRM_STATEorREGION|LAW_FIRM_POSTCODE|LAW_FIRM_COUNTRY|CLIENT_NAME|CLIENT_ADDRESS_1|CLIENT_ADDRESS_2|CLIENT_CITY|CLIENT_STATEorREGION|CLIENT_POSTCODE|CLIENT_COUNTRY|LINE_ITEM_TAX_RATE|LINE_ITEM_TAX_TOTAL|LINE_ITEM_TAX_TYPE|INVOICE_REPORTED_TAX_TOTAL|INVOICE_TAX_CURRENCY[]
...