SPAD – SAP Spool Administration Rafiq Gajula 21th May, 2012

SAP Spool Administration

The main objective of SAP spool system are the processing and

administration of print requests as well as the administration of

output devices and their mapping in the SAP System.

Concepts:

1)Knowledge on ISO standard page formats & Custom Page formats

2)Output Controller(Transaction SP01)

3)Device types & its upgradations

4)SAP Printing guide lines

5)Output Devices configuration

SAP Spool system - Objective

SAP Spool Administration

Standard paper sizes like ISO A4 & A3 are widely used all over the world.

SAP Spool system - ISO Standard Page formats

Forma

t

Dimension

s in MM(W

x H)

Dimensions

in Inches(W

x H)

Usage

A1 594 × 841 23 3/8 × 33 Flip charts

A2 420 × 594 16 1/2 × 23

3/8

Drawings, Diagrams,

Large tables

A3 297 × 420 11 3/4 × 16

1/2

Drawings, Diagrams,

Large tables

A4 210 × 297 8 1/4 × 11

3/4

Letters, Magazines,

Forms, Catalogs, Laser

printer and copying

machine output

A5 148 × 210 5 7/8 × 8 1/4 Note pads

A6 105 × 148 4 1/8 × 5 7/8 Postcards, Toilet

paper...etc

A7 74 × 105 2 7/8 × 4 1/8 Citizen ID card

A8 52 × 74 2 × 2 7/8 Playing cards

SAP Spool Administration

We can print any size of output from SAP, it all depends on what page format is defined and configured in your SAP system. Most of the

standard page format is already predefined in SAP but often you come across

the situation where the required output doesn’t even come close to any

of this predefined page format.

Create/Change custom page formats for Smart forms / SAP Scripts:

Execute transaction SPAD. By default transaction will not show all the tabs,

you need to click on 'Full administration' to get the desire tab.

SAP Spool system – Custom Page formats

SAP Spool Administration

Go to 'Device Types' tabs and hit 'Display' button next to Page Formats.

On next screen hit 'change' button then you will get button to create new

Page format, now press Create button.

SAP Spool system – Custom Page formats

SAP Spool Administration

Fill in the dimensions of custom page format to be created, and SAVE

Custom page format – ZCNLABEL created successfully.

SAP Spool system – Custom Page formats

SAP Spool Administration

At this stage you can use this page format in smart form / sap script, however

you can not print that sap script. This information of page dimension is just

for sap script. You will get warning message while adding page format to sap

script ‘There is no form for page format ZCNLABEL’ and error message while

printing 'Device type SAPWIN does not support page format ZCNLABEL’.

Next step is to create Format Type. Remember Format Type should have same

name as your Page Format name. Start from transaction SPAD, on 'Device

Type’ tab press display button next to 'Format Type'. Click on change then

new button and create Format Type as shown in screen-shot below.

SAP Spool system – Custom Page formats

SAP Spool Administration

Select page format & orientation and click on SAVE.

Format type – ZCNLABEL successfully created.

SAP Spool system – Custom Page formats

SAP Spool Administration

To allow printer to use this new Format Type you need to add this format to

device type of printer. You can find the device type of printer from table

TSP03D, it is stored in field PATYPE.

On 'Device Types' table enter Device name and press Display button next to it.

SAP Spool system – Custom Page formats

SAP Spool Administration

Press ‘Formats’ button and click on create button & enter 'Format Type'.

Once the format type added to device type, double click on the line (on first

column). On next screen as shown below double click on 'Printer initialization‘

SAP Spool system – Custom Page formats

SAP Spool Administration

Inside Printer initialization Printer control commands like vertical & horizontal spacing, Page length, Page margins…etc can be coded for

each device type of each printer on which you are planning to print the

output.These control commands can be overwrites the actual printer page

format settings of the printer.(i.e., OS level page format settings of printer).

Similar to printer initialization, We can maintain the line feed, form feed also

For more details on Print control commands please refer attached note.

This note is released by SAP for SAPWIN device type. Like these you can find

notes for each and every device type used.

SAP Spool system – Custom Page formats

SAP Spool Administration

Output Controller – SP01

PurposeEvery user can manage their own spool and output requests in the Output Controller. Call the output controller using transaction SP01(Tools CCMS Spool Output Controller) or in the system by choosing System Services Output Controller.       You require administrator authorization to access other users’ requests. See Authorizations for the output controller

FeaturesIn the output controller, you can:Check the status of your own current spool requests. To do this, choose System Own Spool Requests. Specify selection criteria for displaying spool and output requests. A list of spool or output requests then appears that match these criteria.Output spool requests; that is, the system generates output requests that are sent to the host spooler, for printing or output on other devices.

SAP Spool Administration

Output Controller – SP01

Display detailed data about a spool or output request and change certain attributes such as destination printer and the number of copies

Display the data to be printed and download it as an ASCII file. Add spool requests to another spool request. Delete requests.

SAP Spool Administration

The device type indicates the type of printer to be addressed. When you

define an output device, choose the name of the device type that was

defined in the SAP System for your printer model. SAP provides Generic

(device-independent) device types like SAPWIN, SWINCFC…etc for OS

MS Windows.

The system uses the information in the device type to convert a document

from the internal SAP character representation (spool request in OTF or in

text format) to a device-specific, print-ready data stream (output request).

The device type is the total of all attributes of an output device that the SAP

System must know to control the output device correctly, such as control

commands for font selection, page size, character set selection, and so on.

List of SAP supported device types and its related notes are attached.

Device types & its upgradations

Note 1088593 - List output with Japanese_Chinese_Korean device types_files.zip

SAP Spool Administration

Choose the correct device type:In most cases, the SAP System already provides the appropriate device type for the printer type for the printer model that you want to use. These standard device types are completely defined and need no modification or extension before you use them in device definitions.

Almost all printers are delivered with Microsoft Windows printer drivers. The system can control these printers with the generic (device-independent) device type likes SAPWIN, SWINCFC, CNSAPWIN…etc. The Microsoft Windows spool system then performs the processing of the print data.

If the specified device types are not available, and generic device types cannot be used, you must create your own device type or edit a copy of an existing device type. We recommend that only those with specialist knowledge of the SAP Spool System and printer driver code do this. For more information, see Defining a New Device Type .

Device types & its upgradations

SAP Spool Administration

Attributes of a Device Type:A device type is distinguished by the attributes listed below. If you change an existing device type or create a new device type, you must change at least some of these attributes.Character set: A character set specifies the codes with which characters must be represented in the print-ready output stream (output request). This code replaces the generic SAP characters set that is used internally by the SAP spool system (spool request).Printer driver: You can specify different printer drivers for printing SAPscript documents and ABAP lists.Print controls: Print controls represent printer operations, such as boldface or changing the font size. These print control are replaced by printer-specific commands during the creation of the output request from a spool request.Formats: Formats specify the format supported by the SAP system. The system differentiates between SAPScript formats (DINA4 and LETTER) and ABAP list formats (X_65_132 = 65 rows/132 columns).

Device types & its upgradations

SAP Spool Administration

Page format: A page format is the interface between a format and SAPscript. It specifies the paper dimensions with which SAPScript can calculate the row and column lengths.Actions: Actions are output device-specific commands that are required for the implementation of a format. The action printer initialization, for example, can contain a printer command with which the number of rows on a page is defined. There is a set of actions for every format supported by a device type.

Defining a New Device Type: http://help.sap.com/saphelp_nw04/helpdata/en/d9/4a956e51ea11d189570000e829fbbd/content.htm

Copying Device Types:http://help.sap.com/saphelp_nw70ehp2/helpdata/en/d9/4a957b51ea11d189570000e829fbbd/content.htm

Device types & its upgradations

SAP Spool Administration

For Copy/Change of device type please refer attachment.

During upgradations of device types the following cascading font tables are updated,

1.CFONT_INFO2.CFONT_MAPPING3.CFUNICODE_BLOCK4.CFONT_TEMP_FILE5.CFONT_CHAR_WIDTH6.CFONT_MAINLOG (Optional)

For more details please refer below attached notes,

Device types & its upgradations

Note 17054 - How to copy or change a device type_files.zip

SAP Spool Administration

The SAP Printing Guide describes the functions of the SAP spool system. This cross-platform component outputs forms and documents, which are formatted and passed to a host spool system. You can control all output from the SAP System and do not need to handle any processing in the host spool system.

The main tasks of the SAP spool system are the processing and administration of print requests as well as the administration of output devices and their mapping in the SAP System. 

For complete printing guide lines Please refer Attached PDF document provided by SAP,

SAP Printing guide lines

SAP Spool Administration

DefinitionA target device must be specified for the output for every document to be printed in the SAP system. As the document can be output using not only printers, but also archiving devices, these devices are called Output Devices in the SAP system. In the SAP system, output devices are the logical representations of the real output devices.

UseYou must create a device definition in the SAP system for every output device. This definition contains all the important data for addressing the device; otherwise the device cannot be correctly addressed. This data includes, for example:

Device type, such as SAPWIN or HPLJ4 Name of the spool server (= application server with a spool work

process) Host spool access method (such as frontend or remote) Destination host (for remote access methods)

Output Devices configuration

SAP Spool Administration

Output Devices configuration

StructureThe following fields are mandatory when you are creating an output device, depending on the printer on which you want to print and from which operating system you are printing (transaction SPAD Output Devices Change Output device Create/Create using template):1.Device Attributes

Output device - The name of the printer in the SAP system. It can be up to 30 characters long, and is case-sensitive.

Short name - The system accesses the printer using this name. It can be generated automatically.

Device type - Enter the device type that is defined in the SAP system for the printer model here, such as HPLJ4 for the HP Laser Jet 4000. The generic device type SAPWIN is available for printing under Microsoft Windows, with which you can use every device supported by Microsoft Windows, even if the device type is not defined in the SAP system.

Spool Server - Enter the name of the SAP spool server (application server with the spool work process) that is to prepare the output for this device here.

SAP Spool Administration

2. Host Spool Access Method Host Spool Access Method (Operating System spooler) - You select the type of connection to the printer here. The access method that you must enter depends on your operating system and print architecture (such as front end printing, local, and remote printing). It determines how data is transferred to the host spooler.

Host Printer - Enter the name of the output device as it is specified in the

host system (operating system). Enter the name exactly as it is defined in

the host, that is, with the same capitalization. The name cannot contain

any spaces. If you enter __DEFAULT in this field, the default printer of

your Microsoft Windows PC is addressed Host - This field appears only for local printing. The input is

generated automatically and depends on the spool server. Destination host - Fill this field out for remote printing (over a

network): Name of the host that receives the data to be output. This is the

host on which the (SAP)LPD is running.

Output Devices configuration

SAP Spool Administration

In addition to these mandatory fields, there are fields that already contain a default values or that can remain empty. These are required for the type of printing, but not by the SAP system for controlling the printer, such as tray and cover sheet information.For information about creating a device definition for a particular printer, see the following sections:Defining Output Devices for Microsoft Windows PrintingDefining Output Devices for UNIX PrintingDefining Output Devices for Frontend Printing Using the SAP GUI for WindowsDefining Output Devices for Frontend Printing Using the SAP GUI for HTMLDefining Output Devices for Printing Using E-Mail

Output Devices configuration

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