Text is Shifted or Wrongly Positioned (SAP Library

Text is Shifted or Wrongly Positioned

If the entire output or individual texts are shifted horizontally or vertically on paper, check for the following possible sources of the error:

Are tabs used in the document where the shifting occurs? Then check the lengths of the character strings in that line. If a character string is so long that it extends past a tab stop, then the following tab is forced over to the next tab stop. The text may then be shifted too far to the right or may even be forced onto the next line.

Assume that the following paragraph format and text line are in your text:

T4,,STRING1,,&TABLE-FIELD1&,,STRING2,,STRING3

The doubled commas are interpreted by SAPscript as tabs.

If the contents of TABLE-FIELD1 are longer (dependent on the typeface and the printer being used) than the space between the 2nd and 3rd tab stops, then STRING2 will be shifted across to the 4th tab position and STRING3 may even cause a line break and end up on the next line. Also check the alignment of the texts: LEFT; CENTER; RIGHT; DECIMAL; SIGN.

Printing on a device type that is controlled by the standard driver (STN2) for line printers can result in horizontal or vertical shifting of text. This shifting occurs because the standard driver cannot overprint text (print text on top of other text) and can work only within a fixed-width scheme for character and line spacing.

Such shifting occurs when any of the following is true:

The device type SAPWIN is used with the "page printer" attribute set wrongly. This problem has been fixed as of System R/3 Release 2.2E/2.1K (see also Note 19807).
A non-integer line spacing (for example, 0.6 LINES) has been set for the paragraph. The STN2 driver has to round this up to the next integer number of lines.
Characters or strings have been defined to be on top of others (for example, in the case of overlapping windows). When using a page-oriented printer (HP LaserJet, PostScript or Kyocera) this usually is no problem (page-oriented printers can print characters on top of others). However, the STN2 driver has to shift strings that overlap others either to the left or the right.