How to Define a Printer in SAP

Printer administration is done with transaction SPAD in a SAP system. Basis

administrator needs to define printer in SAP as per the requirement given by
client.

Steps to define a printer in SAP.

1) Login to SAP system. Go to transaction SPAD. You will see following
screen, click on output devices to see defined output devices defined on
SAP instance.

2) In the screen below you can see output defined in SAP system. To
create a new output device click on Create (Shift+F1)

3) You need to give an Output Device name to printer, and a short

description. In the case given below we have kept it same ZTST.

4) Tab Device Attributes

In this, you need to select Device Type for the printer. Device type can be
understood as a printer driver defined in SAP system. To run a printer in
SAP, you must attach an appropriate Device type to it. Here in this case
we have chosen device type as EPESCP9: EPSON ESC/P 9-pin Printer
the printer used was Epson FX-2190 Dot Matrix Printer.
Spool Server you need to give a spool server to queue spool request. It
is name of the server. If you select Host Spool Access Method in tab
Access Method as X: SAPcomm or F: Printing on Front End Computer then
you dont have to maintain Spool Server. Here we have chosen the
default spool server idesdev_DEV_00.

To define a printer you must choose Device Class as a Standard

Printer.

Authorization Class - You can enter the name of an authorization group

instead of an output device in a user authorization. You can keep is as
blank or maintain with DEFAULT authorization group.

Printer information You can store general information for printer

administration like model, location of printer, in example its in SDB - 1,
3rd floor, behind lift. Also you can post a message to a user using this
printer. Like what we have mentioned in the example this printer is to To
print Invoice

5) Tab Access Methods

In this tab, you need to select Host Spool Access Method.
If the spool work process for this printer is running on the host system
you specified for Computer name, choose from the following:
C: The spool server is running on a Microsoft Windows NT
server and requests for this printer are to be transferred to the local
Windows NT Print Manager.
 E: The printer is connected through an external output
management system (OMS).
F: Output requests for this printer should be output locally on
the user's PC or workstation.
I: This device is an archiving device.
L: The spool server is running on a UNIX system and output
requests for this printer are to be transferred to the local host spooler.
If print formatting is running on another system, choose from the
following:
U: The formatting process is to transfer the output data to the
remote host system using the Berkeley protocol (BSD).
The formatting process uses this protocol to transfer output data
directly to the host spooler on the remote system.
S: The formatting process is to transfer the output data to the
remote system (a Microsoft Windows PC) using the SAP protocol.
The formatting process transfers the output data to the SAP output
processor (SAPLPD) running on the remote PC.
X: The device is a SAPcomm device.

Here in example we have used U: Print Using Berkeley Protocol So

the printer will use this protocol to print a job. When you use protocol as
Berkeley, you can maintain entry of IP address against printer name
(ZTST) in Host file of an application server and use printer name directly.
Here printer is attached to a machine with IP address 10.76.74.69. You
must make sure that SAP-LPD is running on the machine where printer is
attached.
Host Printer- Hostname/IP address of a host attached to a printer.
Destination Host Hostname where SAP-LPD is running.
Query status through polling - The spool work process keeps track of print
requests sent to the host spool system to be able to update the status of
the requests in the R/3 System. To do this, the host spooler must be
queried periodically.
If a host spool system is slow or there are problems querying network or
remote printers, the query may take a long time. This may affect printing
performance as the spool work process cannot process any other print
requests while waiting for a response from the query. In cases like this,
you can deactivate querying using this switch.
6) Tab Output Attributes
SAP Cover Page: Select this field if you want a cover page to be printed
out along with print requests at this printer.
A cover page is only printed if one was defined in the cover page action of
the formatting actions used by the printer. All SAP R/3 device types have
predefined cover pages.
Users can change the default setting and decide whether to print a cover
page (if one is defined) or not
Host Spool cover page: Specify whether the cover page defined by the
host spooler for this printer should be printed by default. You can choose
from the following settings:
A cover page is never printed
A cover page is only printed if set in the operating system
A cover page is always printed
Users can decide themselves whether to print a cover page when they
select their print options.
Monitor using monitoring infrastructure: If this option is activated, the
monitoring architecture monitors job processing as well as the host spool
requests for this device. The system adds an entry for this device under
the spool - devices node of the relevant spool server. The entry is updated
by the system. This object uses part of the memory in the shared memory
segment of the monitoring architecture. This memory is limited; if a large
number of output devices are monitored, you may not be able to add
additional objects to be monitored (even if the objects are of a different
type). This is the reason why monitoring is optional.
Synchronization of requests of a device: The default is to process output
requests in the order they are created.
If multiple spool work processes are defined on the application server for
this output device, multiple output requests from this output device can
be processed in parallel. If you want to do this, deselect the check box.
Is this option is not selected; some requests may overtake others, as they
will not be processed in the order they were created.
Create a print request for each copy: Indicates whether a print request
should be generated for every copy.
Color Printer - Set this flag if the printer defined is a color printer.
Print Mode - choose Default / Simplex / Duplex / Tumble Duplex as per
the requirement.
Paper tray: Select tray to have printouts.

Here in example, we do not want to print cover page and its a black and
white printer.
7) Tab Output Attributes
Tab Tray Info You can enter information about printer trays in this tab.

As printer Epson FX-2190 has single tray, we have not maintained any
definition for tray info.
8) After giving all this information you need to check your definition, save
and activate the printer settings.

Check the printer settings

Transport the printer settings
Activate the Printer
General Information:

1) See to Note 8928: A list of available device types with SAP.

2) Transportation of a printer definition: In the target system, you must
adapt the spool servers for each device transported. This is because the
system name is used in the instance names and it differs in the target
system from the name of the current system. Logical instance names are
an exception; they are defined identically in both systems.
3) If you define a printer with F: Print on front End Computer, then you
need not maintain host spool entry. In this case, SAP-LPD will be
automatically evoked when a user fires a printout.