Only Microsoft Word as SAPscript Editor in S/4

[markus_karsch5]

Hello all,

we recently did an upgrade from ECC EHP8 to S/4 HANA 2020 and notice a lot of user tickets resulting from the SAP decision of only using Microsoft Word as SAPscript Editor in S/4 like described in note 2342408. While I understand the Legacy SAPscript Editor is not Unicode ready, I do not understand the SAP decision to rely on 3rd party software for such important part of SAP Gui usage.

There are a lot of known issues like described in below notes (only small selection):

2739132 - Office 365 - Excel and Word do not open in place (Inside SAPGUI Window) for some users

3067402 - SAPGUI Desktop Office Integration: Unpredictable behavior while editing multiple MS Office documents in parallel

"Recommendation: It is highly recommended to close all the instances of WORD/EXCEL/PPT while using desktop office integration otherwise it will lead to unpredictable behavior."

3129710 - SAP GUI is crashing when entering Long Text in an editor multiple times

"Resolution: Only edit or change one document at a time."

SAP: Do you really think this recommendations are accepted by end users? We don't think it's a feasible solution to close all MS Office windows before editing a SAPscript longtext in SAP.

We have different issues with performance like Word editor takes 3-15 seconds to open at some users, some users with crashing SAP Gui or empty editor screen. With legacy editor it took 1 second to open and we never had any issue with it (as I remember). Users are mainly on Gui 7.70 SP4. These problems are also known by other customers:

SAP GUI 7.60 crash - maintaining longtexts (office integration) | SAP Community

Note 3129541 - MS Word Editor is not working: "So some customers had changed the SAP standard coding to disable MS Word Editor by adding some enhancement coding"

We would like to know if other customers have the same issues?

If someone from SAP like frank.krause (Product Owner SAP GUI for Windows) can tell us anything about the recommdations in the SAP notes and if there any plans for a Unicode ready replacement of Word Editor in the future or if you think the only solution is to switch back to Legacy editor with enhancement coding for users which do not need Unicode characters?

Regards,

Markus Karsch

[Sandra_Rossi]

At least, there's a version of the SAPScript Legacy Text Editor made available even in SAP GUI 7.70 (SCR LEGACY TEXT EDITOR GUI7.70), of course it's to be installed separately (and activated through program RSCPSETEDITOR)

The note 2342408 just says it's not part of standard SAP GUI anymore 2342408 - SAPscript: Only MS Word as SAPscript Editor available (now that it's a separate software).

[abo]

sandra.rossi I have that component installed but I found that on S4 it is ignored if Word is present, a bit annoying if you ask me.

[markus_karsch5]

Hi Andrea, you can make a small enhancement in mentioned method of note 3129541 to activate Legacy editor again in S/4. We do not really like this option because it's not supported and not really Unicode ready, but seems to be the only option to make our users happy again.

[abo]

markus.karsch6 hmm, interesting approach but I am not that desperate and I don't want to mess with production systems for such a minor issue; thanks for the tip, though.

[Sandra_Rossi]

The note is talking about customers changing CL_COS_UTILITIES=>IS_S4H, I am surprised that some customers have opted to change at this strategic place. Better enhance the function module NLS_WORD_ENABLE (I see this function module in my specific scenario) rather than IS_S4H, less chance to harm the system. And why not just limiting to the exact situation and the exact users who have issues, possibly checking the ABAP call stack, the current user ID, etc.

EDIT: too bad, SAP has also deactivated the code (by calling CL_COS_UTILITIES=>IS_S4H) in CL_GUI_SAPSCRIPT_EDITOR and CL_GUI_RTF_EDITOR. I understand now why the clients have enhanced IS_S4H. SAP really don't want clients to use this control ! (for information, after bypassing these 2 barriers, the control is displayed successfully)

[markus_karsch5]

Hi Sandra,

we used enhancement in NLS_WORD_ENABLE and added a user parameter so it can be activated individually only in case of problems. This works for our scenarios.

Unfortunately no answer from SAP also this question has most votes in space "UI SAP GUI for Windows".

Regards, Markus

[tundekolcza]

Hi,

I think instead of modifying the SAP standard code, you might be able to use the function int_sapscript_editor (instead of cl_gui_sapscript_edit). The function seems to work even in S/4.

Regards,
Tünde

[markus_karsch5]

Hi All,

here the next episode of "MS Word as SAPScript editor":

If you add an routing long text in Word editor which includes "0,15" (for example) in CA02 an ITF-Escape-Sequence described in note 742662 is inserted when you edit it the SECOND time. Text is then shown as "0< (>,< )>15" in SAPScript editor or in CA02 operation overview page if it is in the first line. In Word editor you cannot see this escape sequence.

We have raised an SAP incident but they say it is a technical limitation and it cannot be solved. Don't any other customers use comma in the first line of a routing long text and find this extremly annoying that a simple comma is escaped?

Additionally I would like to show you the "comment" of Frank Krause because I pointed him in the following blog to this discussion:

SAP GUI for Windows 8.00: 64bit version coming (in addition to the 32bit version) | SAP Blogs

Regards, Markus