Introduction

Depending on your knowledge, you may be able to skip certain parts of the documentation. This section tells you about the units in this documentation and what they contain so that you can select the parts you need. The documentation consists of these parts:

1. The introductory part. It first describes general concepts on form printing (independent of the tool you use). If you already developed forms on a PC, you can skip this part or refer to special sections of it, if required. Then, the Overview gives a bird's eye view of form development using SAP Smart Forms. Don't miss this part, because it is essential for understanding the basics of SAP Smart Forms.

2. The practical part. Using SAP Smart Forms explains how you use nodes to describe your form output. Starting with the simple node types, the end of this part is dedicated to more complex output, for example, in tables, which requires insight into the relevant concepts. After reading about the Basic Elements of a Form you should start to actually work with the SAP Smart Forms user interface. You will easily familiarize with it. Then, if required, you can resume reading about the more complex features.

   Note

   For practicing, take a look at the example forms in the system. They have the name prefix SF_EXAMPLE_. In the ABAP Editor (transaction SE38), you can use a program with the same name to call these forms.

3. The descriptive part. It describes the tools for maintaining forms in the Form Builder, for maintaining styles in the Style Builder, and for maintaining text modules. You may have found out already many of the functions described there, but maybe you are still searching for the keyboard command you can use in the Table Painter to select several table cells in one go?

4. The form output part. It introduces you to all the things you can do with your form once it is completed. Appended to the basic features you find information on how to administer form graphics.

5. The advanced form development part. It requires programming skills. The sections describe the behavior of Smart Forms in detail and contain information for application programmers.

6. The Web forms for Internet applications part. It leaves classical form printing and explains how to integrate HTML output of SAP Smart Forms into Internet applications. We recommend that you do not use this part as a starter - unless you must integrate the form of a colleague into an Internet application.