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Use

You use character formats to assign special output attributes to sections of texts or character strings within a paragraph. You must choose a different name for each character format.

Integration

A Smart Style can consist of nothing but character formats. However, you must define at least one standard paragraph.

Features

After creating a character format, you can choose the following attributes:

  • Font attributes and superscripting/subscripting

  • Bar code

Font Attributes

You maintain font attributes on the Font tab of a character format. Using the combo boxes Font Type, Font Size, and Font Style, choose a font type from the SAP standard.

Note

If you want to use a font type that is not part of the standard SAP system, you can import your own fonts. The procedure is the same as in SAPscript (see: Using TrueType Fonts).

Other settings:

  • Underline: This attribute allows you not only to insert an underline but also - by selecting the appropriate distance from the base line- to create strikethrough or shaded text (see also F1 help).

  • On the Standard Settings tab, you find the effects Superscript and Subscript.

Colors

You can specify a font color for your character format. However, the inline editor can display only a subset of the colors available in the Form Builder. Colors unknown to the inline editor appear black.

Since a character string in the inline editor can receive several subsequent character format assignments, this can result in a conflict with the coloring. SAP Smart Forms always assigns the color of the last assigned character format to the character string.

Preview

The font is displayed in the preview. The prerequisite is that you have specified a meaning for the character format. The string entered is blended into the text line of the preview and appears according to the settings you made.

Bar codes

Bar codes can be read automatically by scanners. You maintain bar codes in transaction SE73. There, you can differentiate between system bar codes and printer bar codes:

  • System bar codes are printer-independent. In a Smart Style, you can define a character format for a system bar code and select a system bar code from the Standard Settings tab.

  • Printer bar codes represent the connection to the device-specific control sequences for the printer. A printer bar code refers to a device type, to the system bar code, to a bar code prefix, and to a bar code suffix. The prefix and the suffix contain the actual control sequences for the printer for the beginning and the end of a bar code.

In the form, all you have to do to print a number string as a bar code is to assign to it the character format for which you selected a system bar code. The bar code prefix and bar code suffix are then sent to the printer before and after the number string. In the print preview, however, all you can see is a standard graphic in the size of the bar code.

Caution

A printer must regularly receive additional hardware to be able to print bar codes. For more information on printing bar codes, see Outputting Bar Codes in the SAP Printing Guide (BC-CCM-PRN). This section also contains an overview of the bar codes pre-defined by SAP.

Activities

  1. In change mode of the Smart Style, choose the Character Formats node and then Create.

  2. In the Character Format field, enter a two-character character key.

  3. Select the desired attributes on the individual tabs.

  4. Select Activate.