XIF is a page layout format used by ScanSoft Pagis scanning software. XIF format was developed as an extension to TIFF format. XIF files store text documents as images.

File with .XIF extension is not an image file, strictly speaking. Such file contains image data, metadata, and other related information, including user notes. XIF image contents are divided into 4 layers: 

• Text layer for optical character recognition,
• Text colors layer, 
• Color image segments layer, 
• Background tint layer.