Function documentationAdministering XDC Files for SAP Device Types (Report RSPO0022)

 

When Printing an SAP Interactive Form, the form is sent in XML format to Adobe Document Services (ADS), which formats the form and, among other things, returns a file containing the print data (for example, in PCL or PostScript format).

To generate this print file, ADS requires an XDC file. This is a printer description in XML format. It contains, for example, information about which printer language and which printer commands can be used. SAP Interactive Forms documents can only be printed on printers for which ADS has an XDC file for the SAP device type. You can use the administration report for XDC files RSPO0022 to administer the mapping of SAP device types to XDC files. The mapping is stored in table TSP0B.

If you run the report RSPO0022 in transaction SE38, two tables are displayed:

  • The upper table can be used to assign an XDC file to an SAP device type (or remove the assignment).

  • If a device type is used for printing and it does not yet have an XDC file, the system checks which printer language is used by this device type and whether a standard XDC file is defined for this printer language. This assignment between printer language and standard XDC file can be specified in the lower table.

By default, the following XDC files exist on the ADS for each ADS version:

Printer Language/Print Output

XDC File

PCL

hppcl5e.xdc for black and white printing, hppcl5c.xdc for color printing

PostScript

ps_plain.xdc

PDF Device Type

acrobat6.xdc

ZPL for 203 DPI

zpl203.xdc

ZPL for 300 DPI

zpl300.xdc

Note Note

If no XDC file is assigned to the device type and no standard XDC file can be determined for the printer language, SAP Interactive Forms by Adobe cannot be printing using this device type.

End of the note.
Creating and Changing an XDC Entry

When creating or modifying an entry, you need to specify the name of the XDC file in question. If ADS does not fulfill the prerequisites described in SAP Note 1805971, you also need to enter the type of this XDC file. The type specifies which printer language is used by the XDC file. Choose F4 to display a list of the permitted values If the type of the XDC file does not match the printer language of the device type, a warning is displayed. This entry is highlighted in red in the overview.

If ADS fulfills the prerequisites described in SAP Note 1805971, the system also checks whether the XDC file exists on the ADS. If this is not the case, it is reported as a warning. Entries like this are highlighted in yellow in the overview.

If you want to use different XDC files for black and white printing and color printing, you can specify this by selecting the Different XDC File for Color Printing checkbox.

If this checkbox is selected, the content of the field XDC Name (Black and White) is used for black and white printing and the content of the field XDC Name (Color) for color printing. If this checkbox is not selected, the XDC file under XDC Name is used for both color printing and black and white printing. In this case, XDC Name (Color) is shown in gray in the overview table.

Whether a print out is black and white or color is determined as follows:

  • If the version of ADS supports it, you can select additional Print Options for the print out. If the XDC files for black and white printing and color printing are different, the print option Color Printing is displayed.

  • If the additional print options are not in use, the definition of the output device in transaction SPAD is used. In this definition, on the Output Attributes tab page, there is a Color Printer checkbox. If this checkbox is selected, the XDC file for color printing is used.