How exactly does printing in SAP work in terms of the settings in SPAD?

[Former Member]

Hi

I'm just trying to get my head around how SAP talks to a printer based on the 'Host printer' and 'Destination host' values set in SPAD, in terms of Print queues on Windows servers.

It would seem from some recent work/tests that it only really uses the 'Host printer' yet if your 'Destination Host' (i.e. Windows printer server) is invalid when you try and save it complains. But it doesn't seem to use this anyway, as per the following situation:

We had printer1 set up on server1 and server2. In SPAD we were pointing at printer1 on server1. This worked okay.

printer1 was then renamed on server1 to printer1_old.

However, SAP printing continued to work and go to the correct printer.

Note that the name "printer1" was still allocated in DNS.

So it seems that the SAP prints are now going direct to printer1 and not via server1 (as the queue with that name no longer existed on the server!).

So what is the point of entering the printer server/destination host?

Regards

Ross

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hi Ross,

Have you actually verified that when printing to the printer1 device described, if it is actually going to the print server (server1) to be managed? Meaning - have you monitored the server1 print queues while sending a request to printer1 from SAP after the print queue name change? If you can validate that the server1 print server is in fact bypassed, it may be as described in the below link that you may be printing directly to your printer via U protocol IF your printer is Network printer. As per the document "Network printers simulate their own host spool system. They can be directly connected to the network with a network card and receive SAP output data". So if your printer is network, and you are using U protocol - this may explain:

[http://help.sap.com/saphelp_nwmobile711/helpdata/en/c1/d4ea3bb5af9112e10000000a11402f/content.htm]

Hope this helps!

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Thanks! Yes it looks like using option U it can print directly to the printer! Interesting!!

[Former Member]

This link might be helpful to your answer: http://help.sap.com/saphelp_nw70ehp1/helpdata/en/94/45c53bcc422d42e10000000a114084/frameset.htm

Kind regards,

Mark

[Former Member]

Thanks

I found a page which explains about the destination host and says that the SAPSprint program runs on the server defined there.

Which still doesn't explain why it works when printer1 no longer exists on server1.... you think it would fail...

Ross

[bernd_speckmann]

Which host spool access method are you using?

C - Direct operating system call?

If yes, the host printer is the name of the share on your print server. It's not the name of the printer on the server. That are different things.

So if you rename the printer on your server and not the share it still works.

Regards

[Former Member]

Sorry for the delay...

We use option U: Berkeley printing...