MS Word will open a Rich Text File (RTF document) and show it in the original layout, as created in Legacy. It's handy to use this when you want to use your word processor to edit or modify the file. Index and Table of Content codes are even embedded in the Legacy-created RTF file so that your word processor can generate these items and refer to the correct page numbers.
Most text oriented reports in Legacy offer the RTF output format. Other reports (like charts) that include a lot of formatting for lines and boxes are not suited for this type of output.
- To produce an RTF report in Legacy, click the Rich Text File option near the bottom-right corner of the reports that support this output type. When you do this, the Print button in the upper right corner turns into a Create button.
- Clicking Create prompts you for a file name and location for saving the rich text format file. It will have a .RTF extension.
- After the file has been saved, Legacy offers to open it with your default word processor if you want to view it or work with it.
The proper order for working in a Legacy RTF file in your word processor is:
- Edit or add text as needed, spell check, proofread and then add or format pictures as needed. You can even add additional footnotes using your word processor’s footnoting feature; change the headers and footers; the placement of page numbers on a page, etc. Please consult your word processing Help file or manual for the details.*
- Generate the Table of Contents using your word processor’s table of contents feature. It is important that you create the Table of Contents at the place in your document where it says:
[ Note: Using your word processor, generate a Table of Contents here. ]
[ All titles are marked with the Heading1 and Heading2 styles. ]
[ Erase these three lines. ]
Please consult your word processing Help file or manual for the details.
3. Last of all, generate the Index using your word processor’s indexing feature at the end where it says:
[ Note: Using your word processor, generate an Index here. ]
[ All names have been marked as index entries in this document. ]
[ Erase these three lines. ]
Please consult your word processing Help file or manual for the details.*
If you get these steps out of order (for example you do them in order of 3, 2, 1) the page numbers in the Index and Table of Contents will be wrong. You must follow the steps in the order listed above to get the correct page numbering.
* The ability of a word processing program to interpret the RTF files produced by Legacy and duplicate the report format, generate Indexes and Table of Contents, etc. will vary from word processor to word processor as well as between different versions of each. Because of this, we do not provide support for working with word processors. Each company that makes a word processor has its own technical support and system of Help files and/or manuals to guide their users.
