Front-End Printing on Local
Printers
Use
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 NW 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.
More information:
Constraints for Front-End Printing
