Defining Character Sets (SAP Library - SAP Printing Guide (BC))

Defining Character Sets

Defining a character set makes the character set available for use in the spool system. You link a character set to printers or online display routines by:

Entering the character set name in a device-type definition The spool system uses the character set to generate an output stream for the output device.
Selecting the character set in an SAPscript SF<nnn> print control SAPscript can then select the character set. You must also define the font and specify its font metrics in SAPscript. The SF<nnn> print control is associated with the SAPscript font definition. In addition, you must also adjust the form to use the new font.

You only need to define a character set when you add a new output device to your system, and the output device requires a character set that is not yet supported by the SAP System.

To define a character set, choose Tools ® CCMS ® Spool ® Spool administration ® Full administration ® Character sets on the Char. sets tab page. Defining a character set is a two-step process:

First, define the character set by choosing Create or Create with reference.

Then, assign characters to the character set using their R/3 ID numbers. Choose Character set ® Edit character set.

If the character set is required on more than one instance (a distributed system), you must update the character set cache on the other instances (those that you are not currently working on).

Entering a Character Set Definition

To define a character set, you must fill in the following fields. For information about what to enter, see your printer or character set documentation.

Character set: A four-digit number for the character set. Enter a 9xxx number; numbers beginning with 9 are reserved for customer use.

The complete naming convention is as follows:

First number: Code

0 EBCDIC character sets

1 ASCII character sets

2 Mixed single-byte / double-byte character sets

4 Double-byte character sets

6 Mixed character sets

8 Double and multi-byte character sets

9 Reserved for code pages that you define.

Second number: Country

1-3 Countries that use the Latin alphabet (Western Europe, North and South America, Australia, Africa)

4-6 Countries that use non-Latin alphabets and font systems (Eastern Europe, Asia, Arabic countries in Africa)

7-9 Reserved for special languages.

Third and fourth numbers: a sequential number

Examples:

0100 IBM 00697/00273 (Latin-1 Germany / Austria)

0401 SNI BS2000 8859-5 EHCLC (multilingual Cyrillic)

Edit the remaining fields as described in the field help. The system updates a Version counter each time you save a character set.

Specifying Characters For a Character Set

Specify the characters for a character set by entering the R/3 ID number of each character in the ChrNo field of the Edit Character Set screen.

For each character, you must also enter the value with which the character is to be represented in an output stream. Enter the value as one or more hexadecimal bytes in the X1-X4 fields. You can find the hexadecimal values for characters in your printer or character documentation. Print a character set by choosing Utilities ® For character sets ® Print character set.

Note

Required characters: You must define these characters in any new character set:

1	R/3 print controls (identification character for print controls, internal hexadecimal value 1C)
32	Space (for SAPscript printer drivers)
35	Number sign

Activating a Character Set

Character sets are held in a cache in shared memory. When you add or change a character set, this cache is refreshed only on the instance (application server) on which you made the change and on any instances where a spool work process or spool formatting program is active.

To refresh the character set on other instances, use any of the following methods:

Invalidate the character set cache by selecting Spool ® TemSe administration. Then select Character sets ® Conv. buffer (CCC) ® Invalidate CCC.

Invalidate the character set cache on each instance on which the character set is required using the R/3 command rstsmain ict.

Restart each instance.

You must also update the separate character set cache used by SAPscript. To do this, run report RSTXDELL once for each client in your system.

This graphic is explained in the accompanying text First Page of SAP Printing Guide