strange characters in textedit

[case]

Hi all

can anyone out there tell me whats happening to all my text files when i open text edit.

all the content seems to be contaminated by weird characters:

{\rtf1\mac\ansicpg10000\cocoartf824\cocoasubrtf100
{\fonttbl\f0\fswiss\fcharset77 Helvetica-Bold;\f1\fswiss\fcharset77 Helvetica;}
{\colortbl;\red255\green255\blue255;}
\paperw11900\paperh16840\margl1440\margr1440\vieww9760\viewh18400\viewkind0
\pard\tx566\tx1133\tx1700\tx2267\tx2834\tx3401\tx3968\tx4535\tx5102\tx5669\tx6236\tx6803\ql\qnatural

etc

What is this!!!!

 

[eric2006]

What were the files created with? Can you create a "clean" document in textedit?

 

[case]

yes, but when i re open it at a later date, it turns up!

 

[eric2006]

Are the file extensions intact? That looks to me like some sort of formatting for a document, and it's possible that the file extension is gone, and therefore the Mac doesn't know how to open the files..