Creating a Local Frontend Printer or Desktop Printer

Local or frontend printing is sometimes confusing in concept but actually very easy to understand. As a rule, local printer is simply another way of saying that the user is going to print to the default printer designated on his/her workstation. You probably do this all the time with Windows to printerspreadsheets, Word documents, etc without thinking about it. You can do the same thing using SAP.

1. Log on to any client in the appropriate SAP system.

2. Go to transaction SPAD.

3. On the Spool Administration: Initial Screen screen, click the Output Devices

button.

4. On the Spool Administration: List of Output Devices screen, click the

Change button and then the Create button.

5. On the Spool Administration: Create Output Device screen, fill in the

Output Name and Short name – I normally use a short name of “DESK” for

“Desktop Printing” but alot of people use a Short name “SWIN” or “LOCL”

as well. Use the following DeviceAttributes fields:

Device type = SWIN
Device Class = standard printer

And the following Access Method fields:

Host spool access method = F: Printing on frontend computer Host printer = __DEFAULT. That is _ _ D E F A U L T

Save the printer.

6. You may now leave the SPAD transaction.

Using this printer will cause print to go to SAPLPD which will use the default printer of the current workstation.

How to configure printer on SAP Server

The configuration of the spool system is a system administration task. The central tool for this is transaction SPAD.

· To create an output device, choose Output Devices on the Devices / Servers tab page. If there is already a large number of devices in your system, you can restrict the output list in the field next to the button.
Important information for a device:
1)Output device
Name, maximum of 30 characters long (case-sensitive).

2) Short name
For internal system purposes (can be automatically generated).

3) Device type
Printer model/family (more information about this below). The device type SWIN transfers the SAP system format to the Microsoft Windows printer driver. This is useful, for example, if various printers are used for front end printing in a Microsoft Windows environment.

4) Spool server
SAP application server with spool work processes or logical server.

5) Location
For example, building and room number (so that users can find their output).

6) Message
Used to temporarily override the location (such as .Is currently in maintenance.)
7) Lock printer in SAP system
Output requests for printers for which this indicator is selected are created but not transferred to the printer. The user receives the message ...no immediate printing.

8) Host spool access method
How does a spool work process contact the operating system spooler?

9) Host printer
Name of the printer at operating system level. Note that this name is case-sensitive. Under Microsoft Windows, there must not be a space in the printer name, and network printers are addressed using their UNC names (in the format \\\). The specification __DEFAULT calls the defaultMicrosoftWindows printer (for example, for front end printing in a Microsoft Windows environment).

10)Host
Only for local printing, is calculated automatically from the spool server.

11) Destination hosts
Only for remote printing. Name of the host on which the operating system spooler (such as lpd or saplpd) is running.