You use the SAPscript PC editor to create a text containing the special character & or <. When you then save the text, this special character is masked in the corresponding ITF text. In other words, it is stored in the text with the notation & or < and saved as such in the database.
Special characters must be stored in this way for internally displaying
SAPscript texts (ITF format). However, the masking can be intrusive if SAPscript texts are read directly from the database (function module READ_TEXT) and then displayed directly in a transaction interface. This can happen, for example, when you create long texts using the inline text editor or when you output IDOCS.
When converting the text from the SAPscript PC editor to the ITF format, you must treat the characters & and <, part of the text, separately. This is because these characters have a specific function within ITF (limiting symbols or character formats). For more detailed information on this subject, see Note 100358, point 11. Any redundant special characters are eliminated using Note 180655.
If you don't want to use SAPscript special characters for symbols and character formats because, for example, SAPscript texts are directly displayed in a screen or in the Text Edit Control, you need to edit the text. One option is for an application to delete special characters in texts within the program itself. SAPscript also offers the two function modules CONVERT_TEXT (output format ASCII) and CONVERT_ITF_TO_STREAM_TEXT.
Please refer to the online help for SAPscript (Basis - Basis Services - SAPscript).