Problem with adobe PDF formula

[Former Member]

Hello guys,

I got a problem with some selfmade PDF formula, because in some cases all the text is displayed like:

The formula is only created in German. The language in which it is displayed depends on communicaton language of the vendor, but no matter what it is the text should be displayed in English, so there will not be any special language characters which could be the reason for it.

Due to some other formular where I got the same problem, I found out that the reason for it causes of some fonts problems with HELVETICA. The whole formula is created in ARIAL font, but in our custom_xfa.xci file there is the transformation from ARIAL to HELVETICA and when opened the PDF file I got the error message that HELVETICA could not be found.

For that old formula I just did an entry in table FPFONTREPL and overwrote the default transformation with it which leads to some new transformation from ARIAL to ARIAL. This helped, but in this case it did not.

The funny thing is it works with every language that I choose in the vendor communciation except Turkish. When I do it with the same vendor e.g. in Bulgarian language, it works. But in both cases there are always English words in the formula.

So what is the problem with turkish? There are some other tables like V_SXDEVTYPL where I can put for every language a separate device type and for Turkey there is some separate, but I tried with others as well and nothing was changed. And I think the table/view is not the right way, because it looks like it is for transformation from SAPscript/Smartforms to PDF (btw. I do not have any idea when something is transformated then?) and not for PDF only?

The only thing that helped was changing the transformation rule in file custom_xfa.xci to ARIAL TO ARIAL. But this is for every formula and I do not know what effect it has on other formula.

So is there any other way for it? Or can anyone be so kind an help me understanding how this whole font transformation works in PDF?

Thanks a lot!

Regards
Michael

[Florian]

Hi Michael,

I think the root of your problem is located in the device-type. What kind of printers you are using and how do the SPAD-Settings look like?

Do you already asked the basis, if they use output device types supported by the SAP Printer vendor program?

~Florian

Do you also have the problem when using SAPWIN?

[Former Member]

Hey Florian,

can you please help me a bit with understanding the whole device type thing. For me it is pretty technical and hard to understand and for our basis as well 🙂

First of all the problem was when looking at the PDF document in our spool list SP01. I actually did not print it. I think it is the same like print preview isnt it? I somewhere read that PDF preview always uses SAPWIN device type which uses the windows fonts. Is this right?

In SPAD we use for most of our printers HPLJ4 device type.

Do you know for what scenarios view V_SXDEVTYPL is used?

It looks like this (screenshot) but when I try to change turkish device type it does not have any affect on print. Is it the right table because there is source format SAPscript/smartforms? What does that mean? Is PDF formula always a transformation from smartforms or SAPscript?

Regards
Michael

[Former Member]

Ok additional info, we now tried to print it. And in printout it works.

So it is about SAPWIN device type which canot use HELVETICA because Windows does not use HELVETICA?

Regards
Michael

[Florian]

Hi Michael,

the problem is that the font you used does not have a replace font. That ends sometimes into your preview stuff. I got a similar issue years ago that my output shifted every single letter one up to the next.

Means A goes to B, B goes to C and so on.

Now you have to ask yourself if it is necessary to have a proper preview too. In any way I really recommend you to contact/use the Printer Vendor program and check all your used device-types and additional to that the front-end device types used at the printserver.

Here is the pdf of HP for all the printers. I can see, that hp offers different devicetypes also for regions. MAybe this is a good beginning

http://h71019.www7.hp.com/enterprise/downloads/HPPrinterSAP-DT2012.pdf

~Florian

The table in your post before is just needed for convertion, means, with what device-type should be the specific output generated when attached somewhere (eg mail).

[Former Member]

Ok, what does Printer Vendor Program mean?

Yes I discussed it with my colleagues and we definitely want to see the preview as well, because some user take a look at this and for searching documents in SAP it is not that helpful to see just points instead of texts

The funny thing is we have CANON and HP printers and all use the HPLJ4 device type. I do not know why but changing that would lead to lots of test scenarios, because all printouts should be tested then if they still work correct. So I would prefer to not change that

Ok and what does this convertion in the table mean exactly? Let's have a look at email e.g.:

I got first some ABAP list, some SAPscript formula, some smartforms formula and some PDF formula. All that is listed in my spool list in SP01.

So in my scenario above I already have PDF in my spool list, so the table does not have any effect on it, even if I take the print preview? For all the other source formats (list, script, sf) it only has affect when converting it to PDF with help of some virtual PDF printer like FreePDF? I think its the only way for getting SAPscript as PDF?

Regards
Michael

[Florian]

Let's start backwards.

The mentioned table is for the pdf-preparation in your system. For example you send a sapscript-form per mail. Means your sapscript isn't a pdf at the moment it is created. It is an OTF and afterwards it is converted into a pdf.

When you send a mail (nacha = 5 external sending) you needn't to pass a printer to the dirver-program (of course, for what reason), but internal the print needs an device-type to get processed and here we go, there is your table again.

The SAP printer vendor program is the official program of SAP to help customers find the correct (and that means more than just working) device-types for their printers. Here is a blog about it with all necessary information

(search SCN is located at the top right corner

I can understand, that changing the device-type directly ends in some testing-scenarios. The other way to go is to put the necessary font-information into your device-type you are using right now, but that is not that easy and I think you need to contact SAP-support for this. This isn't something you can do without having a good experience level here.

Additional to that is to say, that noone can guarantee you a working preview in the end and I'm pretty sure the support also recommend you to play with the output device types.

Here are the answers to your questions:

So in my scenario above I already have PDF in my spool list, so the table does not have any effect on it, even if I take the print preview?

No, printpreview does use OTF-data, just if you have an Adobe in front of you you got a pdf.

For all the other source formats (list, script, sf) it only has affect when converting it to PDF with help of some virtual PDF printer like FreePDF?

Yeah, very abstract you could say that I think.

I think its the only way for getting SAPscript as PDF?

No, you can convert your sapscript /smartforms with abap into a pdf and send the stream but this would be too far away starting to explain it in this content here.

~Florian

[Former Member]

Ok thanks a lot for the link and your answers. It is still pretty technical and tough to understand for me when thinking about what happens when SAP communicates with some printer or adobe, but it helped me, so thank you 🙂

But now back to the problem

I still do not understand what is wrong. Ok as I said the printout worked. This means that normal printer device type HPLJ4 can handle HELVE font, but preview device type SAPWIN can not?

So is this normal behaviour because WINDOWS normally does not support HELVE language? It is not installed in fonts folder. I still do not understand why it does not work especially in Turkish vendor communication language. All other languages work and they use the same SAPWIN device type for preview. Or does it depend on table V_SXDEVTYPL? I tried to change the device type there but it did not matter.

Regards

Michael

[Florian]

Hi Michael,

I think the SAPWIN is located to specific countries and I can imagine that there is special font for turkish language (I9SWIN).

here is a SAP-Node which maybe can help you, it is not for Adobe especially but I think it might also solve the issue

83502 - Printing Support for Native Languages

I will look through my documents during the weekend if I can find something there, but I never had problems like you so I cannot guarantee to find something there...

~florian