Adobe Form with multiple pages cannot output successfully

[kevin_xu2]

Dear Adobe Form specialist,

I got a question about  PDF form with multiple pages is not able to output successfully.

but weird things is, PDF form with only one page is workable.

I really don't understand where is missing or wrong in my customization.

Guys, please take a look at the screenshots which is the information of spool history.

Output device LOCLPDF, the device type is PDF1,

[Laszlo_B · Accepted solution]

Hello Kai,

I assume the first screenshot is meant to show that although transaction SP01 shows that the 2 pages have been printed correctly, not all of them have been printed.

Do I see it correctly? If yes: is it possible that this spool consists of 2 "parts"?

The reason I am asking is that a physical printer usually can not handle a PDF with several "parts".

Chances are that printing from Adobe Reader will solve the problem to some extent, but it is not a long-term solution.

Instead, the external tool SAPPDFPrint can be used. This tool converts the ADS spools from transaction SP01 into a format which should be "understood" by the printer.

Based on your second screenshot I assume frontend printing (with Access Method G) is used.

In this case, follow the description of SAP Note #1444342 - "Device type-independent printing of ADS forms", point "For front-end printing (access type G)" on how to install and use SAPPDFPrint for frontend printing.

Also check SAP KBA #2289706 - "Compatibility of SAPPDFPRINT patches to SAPGUI/SAPSprint", which shows the compatible versions.

Best regards,

Laszlo

[kevin_xu2 · Accepted solution]

Hi, Laszol Badovszky

Thanks for your answers.

Yes, the printer cannot recognize PDF form with multiple pages.

It's successful when I printed out PDF with one page.

But I have a doubt, is there the unique solution to install SAPPDFPRINT component?

I felt it was a bug if system cannot recognize multiple pages to do the output.

please help advise.

thanks.

[Laszlo_B · Accepted solution]

Hello Kai,

sorry, can you please detail what "unique solution to install SAPPDFPRINT component" means?

SAPPDFPrint is an external program, therefore it can not be installed inside an R/3 system. It can be installed only externally.

The only workaround is a new ABAP development which can be used to "stich" the multiple PDF-parts into one single PDF file.

Please see SAP Note #2264208 - "Merging PDF files (ABAP interface)" for details. As this development offers a new class to merge the multiple PDF-parts, it is not in the R/3 standard, so if this solution will be used, you need to develop a custom program which merges the PDF parts with this new class.

However, this Note will not solve the printing question. The reason is that the PDF "transformation" heavily depends on the current printer configuration, therefore an external communication is needed - thus SAPPDFPrint needs to be externally installed.

Best regards,

Laszlo

[kevin_xu2 · Accepted solution]

Hi, Laszlo Badovszky

I installed the SAPPDFPrint, and PDF form with multiple pages can be outputted correctly.

thanks for your help in advance.

what I mentioned in last thread "unique solution to install SAPPDFPRINT component", that means,

is it the only way (SAPPDFPRINT) to solve the PDF with multiple pages?

Why SAP design like that? Badovszky, do you know the reason?

thanks for your help.

[Laszlo_B · Accepted solution]

Hello Kai,

a little bit of technical background information:

ADS PDF spools can consist of several "parts". In addition, each "part" can contain several pages.

A simple example would be:

- Spool 123

--- Part 1 of Spool 123

------ Page 1 of Part 1 of Spool 123

------ Page 2 of Part 1 of Spool 123

------ Page 3 of Part 1 of Spool 123

------ ...

------ Page n of Part 1 of Spool 123

--- Part 2 of Spool 123

------ Page 1 of Part 2 of Spool 123

------ Page 2 of Part 2 of Spool 123

------ ...

------ Page n of Part 2 of Spool 123

--- ...

--- Part n of Spool 123

------ Page 1 of Part n of Spool 123

------ Page 2 of Part n of Spool 123

------ ...

------ Page n of Part n of Spool 123

- End-of-Spool 123

This means that it is possible for a spool to consist of one single part, yet it contains several pages.

This also means that it depends on the application print program whether it will create several parts, or only one single part.

If the ADS PDF spool will contain one single part, then there are no problems: a regular PDF will be output.

However, if several parts are used in the spool, logically they can have different settings.

For example: in report RSPO0020 if you open an ADS PDF spool, you can see that (normally) 2 "administration" files belong to one part, which are required by ADS.

For this reason, the handling of the parts is a logical (architectural?) question.

So this means:

• if you will only create one part in the ADS PDF spool (with several pages), chances are you won't need SAPPDFPrint
• however, for printout the SAPPDFPrint is more likely to be needed. The reason is that not much printers can "natively" (without Adobe Reader) handle PDF source code, or they simply run out of built-in-memory.

Thus, SAPPDFPrint is needed.

Best regards,

Laszlo

[kevin_xu2 · Accepted solution]

Hi, Badovszky

I printed out  SAP Standard PDF form under Chinese language. found one column with pound keys.

Highlighted in red column.

could you help to check?

[kevin_xu2 · Accepted solution]

Thanks, Badovszky.

It's clear.

Appreciate for your kindly input. I understood what's the basic logic.

[Laszlo_B · Accepted solution]

Hello Kai,

please check in transaction SP01 whether those hash signs are already visible in the print preview.

Are they visible in R/3 already? Or they appear only in the printout?

Best regards,

Laszlo

[kevin_xu2 · Accepted solution]

Hi, Badovszky

Sorry for the later reply. It was Chinese Dragon Boat Day, recently.

I previewed the PDF form before output. It is mess code either.

and in SP01, it is mess code.

Not sure why there is display # symbols in Chinese language ZH.

but it display well in English language EN.

Below is the snapshots of output device setting.

[Laszlo_B · Accepted solution]

Hello Kai,

sorry for my absence too - I was far away from SCN in the past few days.

It seems ADS already generated an incorrect PDF, therefore the ADS mechanism needs to be checked why # characters appear.

This is the point where I need to hand over this issue to the ADS experts as a deeper analysis from ADS side is needed.

If you have a valid SAP Support contract, open an Incident on component BC-SRV-FP, then my colleagues will describe what kind of traces / logs will be needed.

Perhaps the ADS experts can check a few things here in SCN too - from my side I can only tell that the Unicode Device Type PDFUC (shown in the last screenshots) is unfortunately (luckily?) not the reason of the issue here, because ADS uses Java, and Java only works in Unicode.

Therefore it is possible that there is a configuration issue here - sorry that I can't be much of help here anymore.

Best regards,

Laszlo

[Former Member]

Hi Kai Xu,

i suppose there is an issue in the form and not in the spool.

Mostly if you printing more pages, the risks is bigger to get a scripting or similar errors.

Therefore i would suggest you to analyse the printed form itself doing following tasks.

Got to transaction: SFP => utilities=>settings

Then choose trace level 4 and click ok.

Now the trace for adobe forms is activated.

Please print now your form using the preview button. Then look in the document attachments for errors in the file trace.txt and in the error.pdf.

If this is not working (may be you get an error before the form is displayed) then specify in the menue abobe in the input field "File Name" a file path on your local drive like: "C:\Temp\trace.txt".

The file doesn't exists yet.

Then click ok and print your form again (no preview / use the real printing button).

Afterwards there should be the file you specified. Open the file adn analyse the issue.

Good luck

Ismail

[kevin_xu2]

Unbelievable.

Still no one.

[Former Member]

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