PDF printing using SAPSPRINT

[Former Member]

We want to move from SAPLPD to SAPSPRINT shortly.

At the moment some aspects are not working and I need your input.

We have a printer that used to print PDF documents fine with SAPLPD however its failing with SAPSPRINT.  Does this mean that with SAPSPRINT, we are mandated to use SAPPDFSPRINT or would it still work with other PCL based printers.

The printer in question is a HPLJ5SI printer using access method U on a print server with SAPSPRINT.  I reviewed SAP notes and found that we need to have a supported XDC file in order for PDF printing to work. I couldn't find one for HPLJ5SI within the list of XDC files supplied so I added the device type HPLJ5SI and gave default XDC name as hppcl5e.xdc however it doesn't work as it still says unknown device type.

I tried tweaking other things to make it to work but no luck. Also once I add the missing device type to an existing PCL XDC in the XDC assignment, do i need to re-create the PDF form from scratch or would it be okay if I were to re-print a PDF spool thats already there. Just wanted to get test case right here.

The error seem to indicate problem at the core so my question is do we need to switch to SAPPDFSPRINT and if this is our only option given that we will be migrating from SAPLPD to SAPSPRINT.Any pointers here are appreciated.

Regards

Kalyan

[yiming_zhang]

Hello Kalyan,

SAPLPD is not supported now, so you need to install SAPSprint on the print server.
To print PDF, you can install SAPPDFPRINT on the print server on which SAPSprint is installed.
Then use device type PDF1 or PDFUC (on unicode system) and access method S.
Please see the two SAP notes:

894444 - Tool for server-based print under Microsoft Windows (SAPSprint)

1444342 - Device type-independent printing of ADS forms

Regards,
Yiming

[Former Member]

Hi Yiming,

Many thanks for responding.

Does this mean PDF printing is not supported on SAPSPRINT without the SAPPDFPRINT i..e using the XDC assignments we we did earlier with access method U and SAPLPD. The reason why I ask is, normal printing works fine with SAPSPRINT and access method U.

Could it be because XDC file for our printer is not available and thats why it cant print PDF. I am unable to make this distinction on whether PDF printing is supported with SAPSPRINT and WITHOUT SAPPDFPRINT or its not working because of missing XDC file. Can you please comment on this.

Regards

Kalyan

[peng_wen]

Hello,

If the printer support postscript, you can use a postscript device type like POST2 to print
PDF form from SAP without SAPPDFPRINT.

Alternatively, for all priter models, you can use device type PDF1, PDFUC(no need to copy XDC),

or even with the PCL and SAPWIN device types(need to copy XDC according to note 1066060),
in this case we must install the SAPPDFPRINT on the printer server.

Regards,

Wen Peng

[yiming_zhang]

Hello Kalyan,

Please see note 1444342.
"You want to print forms that were generated by ADS on printers that are not
defined with a device type in accordance with Note 685571 (that is, they are not
assigned to an XDC file). This was not previously possible. Due to the new
component SAPPDFPRINT, interactive forms can be printed on any Windows printer
just like all of the other spool requests with the SAPWIN device types."

By using SAPPDFPRINT, you do not need to assign XDC file to device type. So it is a easy way to
print PDF on any printer.

If you want to use XDC file and device type other than PDF1 or PDFUC, please read note  685571.

685571 - Printing SAP Interactive Forms by Adobe

Regards,
Yiming