The ITF format is a readable format, that means, it contains only those characters of the character set that come "behind" the blank character. Characters smaller than the blank character are not used in the ITF format. The ITF format consists of two parts, the format field and the actual line contents. Certain elements of the format are fixed (for example, the paragraph format '/' for a new line or '/:' to identify the line contents as a control statement). Other elements, such as names of paragraph or character formats can be defined by the user when maintaining the styles and forms.

This format is used in all interfaces between the different components of SAPscript to represent the text lines. In the editor, you edit texts directly in ITF format; the user directly sees the paragraph and character formats and the control statements.

However, this is only a small part of the total extent of the ITF format. Other ITF elements are used to describe styles and forms, even though these attributes are not maintained in ITF format. The table containing the text lines that are passed across the interfaces of SAPscript function modules also contains texts in ITF format.

The composer prepares an ITF text for output, that is converts it into a format that represents the print version. This is the so-called OTF format (Output Text Format). It contains all information on the final line structure and on page breaks. The OTF format is a final format. A text in OTF format can no longer be edited.

The OTF format as the ITF format consists of readable characters. It describes the edited text for a certain output device. Nevertheless, this format is independent of the control language understood by the corresponding output device. The device's print driver converts the OTF format into the language of the output device (for example, Postscript, PCL,...).