Obtaining Printing and Archiving Specifications (SAP Library

Obtaining Printing and Archiving Specifications

If an ABAP program in a background job produces list output, then this output is deposited in a spool request in the R/3 spool system.

You can specify how this spool request is to be processed with the GET_PRINT_PARAMETERS. You can either specify your own printing and archiving specifications in non-interactive mode or display the standard printing/archiving pop-up to your users.

For a sample program, please see Sample Program: Declarations, Set Up, and Print Specifications.

Note

You cannot directly modify the data in the printing and archiving structures that GET_PRINT_PARAMETERS maintains. You must use GET_PRINT_PARAMETERS to fill these structures.

More Information on Printing/Archiving Specifications

You should always include a call to GET_PRINT_PARAMETERS in any job-scheduling program that is to be used in production systems.

The only exceptions are for the following:

programs that schedule jobs that do not produce output (no WRITE keyword). For example, a program that schedules a job that in turn makes only a series of database changes does not need a call to GET_PRINT_PARAMETERS.
test programs. A test program also can run without a call to GET_PRINT_PARAMETERS.

It is important to use GET_PRINT_PARAMETERS because otherwise the spool system uses default values for preparing output. The spool system reads any default values for target printer and spool request disposition from the user master record of the submitting user and formats the output for printing at 80 characters per line and 59 lines per page. There is no guarantee that the resulting formatting will correspond to the printing requirements of the output. For example, the default line length may not correspond to the line length required by the output.

When you call GET_PRINT_PARAMETERS, you’ll need to specify that the function module is to run in BATCH mode and you’ll need to provide the name of the report that is to be run in the particular job step. The function module searches the report for LINE-SIZE and LINE-COUNT specifications in the REPORT keyword. These values, if present, are used as defaults for printing. They are also used, together with the target printer type, to select the most appropriate format for the output. If the destination printer is specified interactively by your user, then the function module presents a pop-up to confirm the format selection.