PDF Spool problem with spools >1 thousand sites

[Former Member]

Dear Experts.

We have a Problem with printing Payslips from HR. Here the way we print it.

First of all we create jobs via report, that generates spools with all personnel numbers for all personnel Areas (One Job for one personnel area). We use Adobe Forms (HRFORMS) with a copy of the SAP Standard. After the Report is ready, we start the jobs via sm35. We do this with Job because it uses about 4 hours to finish for the greatest personnel area. After the Jobs are finished we can see the spools and all of its parts (1 Part for 1 personnel number). The biggest spool has more than 2 Thousand sites. Lower pers areas has spools with about a few hundred.

After that we start the spools one after another and send it to the Printer. In sp02 all spools are finished with green LED, no Errors and no warnings. The lower spools are printed correctly, but the biggest spool with more than 2 thousand sites stops printing all the time. Mostly when 1 thousand sites are already printed. But not always at the same site.

When I download the big spool to my local machine and print it from there it works fine.

Now my question. Is there an internal Maximum of pages or a Maximum pdf file size? Or do I have to search the problem at the printer itself or the printserver?

Hope someone can help me.

Best Regards

Michael

[Private_Member_7726 · Accepted solution]

The pages...   I'm not sure if this is true for ADS spools as well, but if you are using normal SAP output device, turn on in SPAD: Change > Edit, then via menu: Edit > Test tool the "Retain print file" option.

That way you should be able to see/download in SP01> Output Requests > doubleclick on Output request number > "Internal information" the file that SAP sends to print server/printer. If that file contains all documents the problem should be on printer/printserver side. Don't forget to turn off the option when done...

cheers

Janis

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Thanks for your reply Jänis.

I hope that I find the right place to check the Output. I turned on the Testmode in spad for the Printer. After Output I go into the TemSe Information in sp01 and look at the Content of the Output. There I can see, that the complete spool is sent to the Printer.

So is the Problem not on SAP Site?

Regards

Michael

[Private_Member_7726 · Accepted solution]

Yes, that would be strong indication to me that SAP side of solution is Ok. It is possible though unlikely that SAP "malforms" something in the file that is sent to printer/print server. But that still would need to be analysed from printer/print server side.

cheers

Janis

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

I talk to our IT-Operations yesterday. They meant, that we should sent the spool to the printer via lpd command, because they can restart printing at a specific site where the Printer stops working. It seems that this is not possible with the Output via windows printserver.

Could that be the solution of our Problem? How do I Change the Printer to lpc command?

Thanks & Regards

Michael

[Private_Member_7726 · Accepted solution]

Hmm... my first idea is that the way to change how SAP sends what-where, would be to change the Host Spool Access method along with the device type in the output device. Or better still, create for tests another output device entirely - with Host Spool Access method: U - Berkeley protocol, and corresponding device type (so no additional problems are inadvertently introduced in the processing of unrelated output through access method and device type change - like different formatting and other tedious to fix stuff...).

What device type is used in the device you are using currently - if its something to do with *WIN* and access method has something to do with frontend printing then that sounds like plausible way to solve the problem, I believe. However, I'm very apprehensive about such limitations (we can't restart properly, so no frontend print may be used) built in to the solution, because they are not very transparent to "uninititated"..., need to be documented in "big red font" somewhere, etc...

cheers

Janis

[Former Member]

Thanks for all your replies.

We now print the pdf spool with Printer with Access Method 'G' and save it in Network Folder. The 'print road' get the pdfs manually and sent them to their big Printers. We have to do this only one time a month so I think it is ok to do it manually.

Best Regards

Michael

[Florian]

Hi Michael,

what size (kb) do we talk about? MAybe the problem is just the internal memory of your used printer and it is not possible to fetch the whole spool.

I faced a similar problems some years ago and buying a second memory modul for the printer everything worked and works fine

~Florian

[Former Member]

Hi Florian.

Thanks for your reply.

We print on a - I dont know the word in englisch - 'Druckstraße' like directly translated 'print road' on big mass-printers. They can print spools with more than 100 MB, so I dont think they would have a problem with this 17 MB spool. Maybe the Problem is the file-format. Mostly they get the big spools as Postscript and not as converted PDF...

Our SAP Basis try to create a new Printer with lpd Command but all spools go to error Status when we try to print it.

Now we decide to export the files to a safe Network folder and print the file itself without going over a external printserver or a sap System. Maybe I can create an OSS for that Problem?!

Regards

Michael

[Private_Member_7726]

Hi,

Aaah, the Druckerstraße fun Our service provider also uses some kind of "lpd daemon" (print server) to receive files (and couple of times a year things get lost somewhere...). Don't know if SAP can or even would try to help here - they'd probably advise to 1) try to connect via SAP OMS interface, or 2) get a service provider that uses certified OMS, which implements SAP interface... I know I would, if I were in SAP's position

cheers

Janis

[Florian]

Easiest solution could be to create a PDF-Printer, which saves the pdf-file in a folder on the server and afterwards with a small shell-script send it to the "druckstrasse".

~Florian

PS: Druckstrassen are always a lot of fun