Front-End Printing on Local Printers
Normally, all printers on which you want to print from the SAP system must be created in the SAP system as output devices. Front-end printing is available to reduce the significant administration effort associated with this. This means that a user logged on to the SAP system through the SAP GUI can use the printers that are set up at his or her front end PC.
A generic output device needs to be created in the SAP system to allow this. If a user specifies this output device for his or her print requests, he or she can select a printer defined at his or her front end. Front-end printing is therefore especially useful in the following cases:
Users want to print directly at their workstation, without having to create a specific device definition in the SAP system. This is especially the case for users that often work at different work stations or log on to the SAP system on a mobile basis, and want to print at their current location.
Dynamic IP addresses are used for the front end. Unlike remote printing, you do not require any fixed IP addresses for front-end printing.
Prerequisites
In addition to the general print authorizations, every user requires the following authorizations for front-end printing:
Authorization object S_SPO_DEV, authorization field SPODEVICE, authorization %LOC
Authorization Object S_RFC:
Field
Value
RFC_TYPE
FUGR
RFC_NAME
LPRF
ACTVT
16
Features
As of SAP NetWeaver 7.0 EhP 1, front-end printing using control technology with access method G replaces the traditional front-end printing using SAPlpd (access method F). Front-end printing with control technology has advantages, such as simplified printing in Terminal Server environments, front-end printing with the Java GUI for non-Windows platforms, and the direct calling of the Microsoft Windows printer selection window, meaning that the length restriction for printer names no longer applies.
The following table shows when front-end printing can be used:
Type of Front-End Printing |
Description |
|---|---|
A user that is logged on to the SAP system using the SAP GUI for Windows wants to print on a printer defined in his or her Microsoft Windows host. |
|
A user that is logged on to the SAP system using the SAP GUI for HTML wants to print on a printer at his or her front end PC. To do this, the document is converted to a PDF file and can be printed from the browser. |
|
Front-end printing with the SAP GUI for Java for non-Windows platforms. |
|
Front-End Printing Using a WTS (Windows Terminal Server) |
A user that is logged on to the SAP system using the SAP GUI over a Windows Terminal Server wants to print on a printer at his or her front end PC. |
For more information, see Optimal Configuration of Front-End Printing.
