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Smartform bullet point not output when output medium is 5 (send external)

KKilhavn
Active Contributor
0 Kudos

Standard terms and conditions have been included in a smart form, and for this a separate style set was defined, including styles where the numbering type is defined with List = List Character and Character = the bullet character from the Arial monospaced for SAP font (U+2022) - part of the General Punctuation subarea of Unicode.

The standard smartform print program is used (albeit a copy from the SAP Best Practices Baseline package for Norway), i.e. YBNO

When output medium = 1 (print) and the printer uses access method M (Email) and driver PDFUC (PDF Unicode 1.2) the output is fine.

When the driver is PDF1 (PDF ISO Latin-1), and everything else as above, the bullets are replaced by hash signs, i.e. #.

When output medium = 5 (send external) and regardless of printer driver (I have tried 3), the bullets are replaced by hash signs.

The printer driver should be of less importance in the latter case since the PDF that ends up in the SAPConnect queue (transaction SOST) is generated by function module CONVERT_OTF.

As far as I understand from various OSS Notes the CONVERT_OTF function module should support unicode, but my observations indicate that it does at least not support the bullets from Arial monospace for SAP. Since the output is as expected with the unicode PDF driver I have ruled out that this can be caused by problems in Adobe PDF Reader or local fonts on the PC.

Basis release 740, Application Platform release 700.

Report RSTXPDF3

I have tried changing the options for the PDF converter, setting USE_CASCADING = On, UPE_FONTS_CASC = On and eventually also NO_FONT_SUBSET = On, without noticing any difference.

Report RSTXPDF2UC

I have tried the "Change Settings" option for Fonts from Font Repository without noticing any difference in behaviour.

The font mapping SAP -> PDF lists the used fonts (HELVE) for device type SWINCF as using the font integrated in PDF VIewer.

There seems to be no custom settings for font mapping.

I have also tried (after finding the tip here on SCN) the SAP symbols (Insert, Characters, SAP Symbols) where symbol SYM_FILLED_CIRCLE is a nice bullet point. When this character is selected "<680>" is inserted in the SAP Script editor of the text module.

The filled circle is included in all the printouts, although half overlapped with the next character. This is no solution as entering <680> as the bullet character in the list style gives the expected result: <680> (and not the symbol) is used as the list character - and a list character is needed for proper alignment of multi-line list items.

I can't be the first person to need bullet points in a Smart Form - so please share your wisdom!

PS: I just noticed that the same problem applies to the En Dash (U+2013) which has been used in one of the item texts of my test document.

Accepted Solutions (1)

Accepted Solutions (1)

Florian
Active Contributor
0 Kudos

hi Kjetil,

what about a "o" instead of a bullet. Easy solution and works perfect for me.

important to set a left margin

Additional to that, here is a snippet of the official helptext (F1 at the marked field):


Paragraph attribute: fixed character for outline numbering

     Fixed character. This letter is used as a fixed character in paragraph

     numbering for the numbering type CHAR.

     Example If CHAR has been chosen as the numbering type for a paragraph,

     and if 'o' has been entered as the fixed character, this character

     precedes the paragraph:

     o paragraph...

     o paragraph...

     o paragraph...

     etc.

Form looks:

Result is this:

Hope this helps to fix your issue.

Another solution could be a a very small graphic, but that is another story to tell and if you need it, I can share more on this solution.

~Florian

KKilhavn
Active Contributor
0 Kudos

That is a solution that has already been thought of - but it does not solve the underlying issue which is the lack of support for Unicode in CONVERT_TO_OTF - i.e. in SAP standard output handling.

As I discovered just after I posted the question (and thus updated it with a “PS“ at the bottom) this problem is also effecting e.g. long dashes, and that was in an item text which I can not influence.

If Unicode is not supported we have to work around the bullet issue and tell the users that they must be aware of the possibility of incorrect output. However according to the documentation I have come across Unicode *is* supported.

I was going to change the title of the original message, but it seems I can no longer edit it. Perhaps because it has been answered. A better title would have been “Unicode characters not output when output medium is 5 (send external)”.

I am marking this as answered and will post again with this more appropriate title.

Answers (0)