The basic structure of the ITP language

You can divide the ITP language roughly into three parts:

1. Instructions for the creation of text.
2. Instructions for data retrieval.
3. Instructions for data manipulation.

To distinguish between text that has to appear in the result document and ITP statements, the hash symbol is used as a 'tumble switch'; each time a hash symbol is encountered, ITP switches from instruction mode to text mode or vice versa. A model document will always start in text-mode, so before the first ITP statement you have to place a hash symbol.

A very simple model document could look like this:

# 
BEGIN
#
This is a very simple model document.
#
END 
#

The BEGIN and END statement indicate the beginning and end of the ITP statement sequence.

This would result in a document containing the following text:

This is a very simple model document.

Since no data is being merged, this is of course not a very useful document.

Comments and other means to structure the model document

To clarify ITP coding in the model document, you can add comments. Comment starts with (* and end with *).

Most word processors can also aid in the creation of easy readable documents through the usage of different styles, colors, etcetera.