Error when writing RTF Document

Question

I am trying to build a component in an application that allows the user to create/modify/save RTF files.
I've been tinkering with some code for a bit trying to get it to work before I do a full scale implementation and I have run across an issue that is stumping me. (A search of google returned 9 hits for my error - none of which shed much light on my problem).
I am having no problems loading an RTF file. (As a test, I am opening Word in MS Windows, and saving a test document in RTF.) However, when I try to save the file (with or without modifications), I receive the following error:
java.io.IOException: RTF is an 8-bit formatHere is an SSCCE that reproduces the problem:
import javax.swing.*;
import java.awt.event.ActionListener;
import java.awt.event.ActionEvent;
import java.io.*;
public class Main extends JFrame {
    private JMenuBar jmb;
    private JMenu fileMenu;
    private JMenuItem newItem;
    private JMenuItem openItem;
    private JMenuItem saveItem;
    private JMenuItem quitItem;
    private JEditorPane jep;
    private JScrollPane jsp;
    private JFileChooser jfc;
    public Main() {
        initComponents();
    private void initComponents() {
        jmb = new JMenuBar();
        fileMenu = new JMenu("File");
        newItem = new JMenuItem("New...");
        openItem = new JMenuItem("Open");
        saveItem = new JMenuItem("Save");
        quitItem = new JMenuItem("Quit");
        fileMenu.add(newItem);
        fileMenu.add(openItem);
        fileMenu.add(saveItem);
        fileMenu.addSeparator();
        fileMenu.add(quitItem);
        jmb.add(fileMenu);
        jep = new JEditorPane();
        jep.setEditorKit(new javax.swing.text.rtf.RTFEditorKit());
        jsp = new JScrollPane(jep);
        jfc = new JFileChooser();
        this.getContentPane().add(jsp);
        this.setJMenuBar(jmb);
        this.pack();
        this.setSize(500, 300);
        this.setTitle("Editor");
        this.setDefaultCloseOperation(EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
        this.setLocationRelativeTo(null);
        newItem.addActionListener(new ActionListener() {
            public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent evt) {
                jep.setText("");
        openItem.addActionListener(new ActionListener() {
            public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent evt) {
                openDocument();
        saveItem.addActionListener(new ActionListener() {
            public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent evt) {
                saveDocument();
        quitItem.addActionListener(new ActionListener() {
            public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent evt) {
                System.exit(0);
    private void openDocument() {
        int option = jfc.showOpenDialog(this);
        if( option == JFileChooser.APPROVE_OPTION ) {
            try {
                FileReader fr = new FileReader(jfc.getSelectedFile());
                jep.read(fr, null);
            } catch (Exception e ) { e.printStackTrace(); }
    private void saveDocument() {
        int option = jfc.showSaveDialog(this);
        if( option == JFileChooser.APPROVE_OPTION ) {
            try {
                FileWriter fw = new FileWriter(jfc.getSelectedFile());
                jep.write(fw);
            } catch (Exception e) { e.printStackTrace(); }
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        SwingUtilities.invokeLater(new Runnable( ){
            public void run() {
                new Main().setVisible(true);
}

Answer 1

You're not going to believe this. I just ran a debug on the RTFEditorKit class... here is the "write" method:
     * Write content from a document to the given stream
     * as plain text.
     * @param out  The stream to write to
     * @param doc The source for the write.
     * @param pos The location in the document to fetch the
     *   content.
     * @param len The amount to write out.
     * @exception IOException on any I/O error
     * @exception BadLocationException if pos represents an invalid
     *   location within the document.
    public void write(Writer out, Document doc, int pos, int len)
     throws IOException, BadLocationException {
     throw new IOException("RTF is an 8-bit format");
    }I guess we know why no matter what Charset I use ... I'm getting this error!!