Like you, we have followed the development of SAP forms technology over the last 20 years. Here we give you a brief technical overview of the possibilities of the SAP standard form technologies SAPscript, Smart Forms and Adobe Forms. We will show you when it is worth using SAP forms for labels and when you are doing yourself a disservice.
Label printing with SAP forms technology
Author’s comment: Please note that we are sharing our personal opinion about the advantages and disadvantages based on our experience with hundreds of support cases and implementations with our customers.
SAPscript is getting up there in years
From today’s perspective, SAPscript is an outdated technology. SAPscript is an SAP forms technology in which you create forms and output them via SAP Message Control. For years, this was the only way to address a thermal transfer printer (commonly known as a label printer) directly from SAP.
You have stored print jobs directly in a printer language such as ZPL (Zebra Programming Language) as standard text objects in SAPscript. With your own ABAP development, your developers have replaced texts (e.g. the material number) with variable content. This “text” embedded in the SAPscript was sent to the desired label printer via a corresponding device type (SAP printer driver). And this is exactly where the problems started.
Here are the typical problems with SAPscript:
Unicode characters did not work, character sets other than Latin-1 or ASCII were not properly supported. This led to display problems, particularly with multilingual labels.
For SAP Basis, the search for the right device type was always very laborious. Especially for non-Zebra printer models, there were often no suitable device types and you had to make do with compromises or emulation.
Graphics are used on many labels. These were often not transmitted correctly because the graphic had an incorrect resolution or contained characters that were “swallowed” by the device type.
Printer options such as cutting after the job, dispensing or clean positioning did not work as desired. These options and print settings require special commands which are printer model specific.
The printer resolution also had to be taken into account. As a result, the same label was created multiple times and the labels were therefore printer-dependent. This multiplied the maintenance effort.
SAP Smart Forms – the revolution we’ve been waiting for?
SAP Smart Forms was a small revolution in SAP forms technology. At least that’s what many people thought. Smart Forms was introduced in April 2001 as the official successor to SAPscript. Since the end of 2005, SAP has discontinued further development. Unfortunately, not much has changed technically for label printing. On the other hand, a more powerful graphical editor is available for ABAP developers.
Improvements in Smart Forms compared to SAPscript:
Compared to SAPScript, Smart Forms has now made it possible to implement internationalization (multilingualism) of the forms. This should reduce the maintenance effort. This was certainly the case with documents, but not with label printing. The problem with the labels was of a technical nature; the resolution of the printer sometimes led to forms being created twice.
Over time, many printer manufacturers have provided their own device types for Smart Forms. As part of the “SAP Printer Vendor Program”, some have now joined Zebra (the de facto standard for SAP), but some have also dropped out again. For many, the Zebra printers were the easiest choice because the device types supplied by SAP were easy to work with. Today, on the other hand, some current models are no longer part of the delivery, and you need to install them subsequently.
It is possible to implement the separation of data procurement and layout with Smart Forms. Unfortunately, it has also been shown here that the devil is in the detail. Our customers often spent days, if not weeks, adapting the layout so that it was correctly positioned and output to match the printer resolution. In most cases, they then reverted to embedding text objects as in SAPscript.
Smart Forms enhanced with label layout software
If you know ZPL, are a developer and have a good connection to SAP Basis, then you have the best prerequisites for efficiently and successfully implementing label printing with Smart Forms. If, on the other hand, the requirements for more flexible printing increased, for example due to different customer requirements, many people helped themselves with professional label layout software. The integration was simple and could complement the SAP form technology. We present two approaches for the use of label layout software below:
Uploading ITF Layouts
You have created a label layout in an external designer and added placeholders. The printer code for a specific printer model was then exported to a text file. These files were created in ITF (Interchange Text Format) so that they could be uploaded as standard texts in SAP. The printer code generated in this way has now been embedded in Smart Forms. However, this did not solve the disadvantages and problems from the SAPscript era.
Dynamic printing with external layouts
The following is a somewhat more flexible integration that is still often used today: Instead of a form, you have generated an export of the pure content in the form of a text file (usually this was a CSV file). A professional label layout software took this and filled the content into a previously created label layout. The advantages are striking and still unbeaten today: you can print on any label printer without having to adapt the layout. You can also use all the features of the printer without having to laboriously search for the corresponding commands.
SAP Adobe Forms – the latest technology
Adobe Forms is the latest standard in SAP forms technology. Today, you will generally develop new forms and therefore also labels in the SAP standard with SAP Adobe Forms. A distinction must be made between static forms (documents) and interactive forms. When we talk about label printing, we are working with static forms.
With SAP Adobe Forms, our customers now have a form designer worthy of the name for the first time. Thanks to the cooperation between SAP and Adobe, you can now use the integrated Adobe LiveCycle Designer. This designer supports different font types, graphics, and barcodes. No additional hardware modules or the like are required.
Use SAP forms technology correctly
Label printing with SAP forms technology is still a challenge for many. It is and remains a task for development and therefore for IT. The specialist department cannot implement adaptations and customer requirements itself. Support from printer manufacturers has improved considerably. However, you have to accept some restrictions here and sometimes have to bring good nerves.
Anyone who prints many different labels and is confronted with numerous legal and customer-specific requirements will certainly prefer a professional label management solution, because: Label management allows you to create label layouts with a professional designer and access the layouts in SAP. Layout control, printer determination and feedback on print status take place directly in SAP. This not only gives you a “single point of truth”, but also a “single point of management” and a preview of your labels.
Do you want a modern SAP integration?
We will be happy to help you evaluate the right technology for you. Our support team will also help you to solve printing problems.
