Print Architecture and Printing Methods

Definition

All hardware and software components involved in printing are combined in the print architecture.

Depending on the order of these individual components, an architecture that fulfills different purposes and requires a specific print method, such as those listed below, is produced:

· Local printing

· Remote printing (network)

· Frontend Printing (SAP GUI for Windows)

· Frontend printing (SAP GUI for HTML)

Structure

The figure below shows the individual components of the print architecture that are required to print from the SAP System:

The individual components interact as follows:

...

1. After the user triggers the print process, the print requests are sent to the spool server, which contains the dialog and spool work processes required for the processing.

2. A dialog work process (D-WP) of the spool server forwards the spool data to the spool database for temporary storage.

3. When the data is explicitly sent to an output device, an output request is generated from the spool request. This is forwarded to the spool work process (S-WP).

4. The spool work process formats the output request data.

This converts an internal data stream of the SAP Systems to a data stream that the output device understands.

5. After formatting, the spool work process forwards the print request to the host spool system (operating system spooler). The host spool system has the following tasks:

- Wait queue management

- Transferring the data to the output device

Depending on the situation of the host spool system, one of the following print types is used:

- local: The print requests are forwarded to the printer through a local network. The host spool system and the spool work process are on the same host.

It is irrelevant whether the output device is directly connected to the server, or whether it is defined using a remote print server.

- remote: The print requests are forwarded from the spool work process to the printer through a remote network. The host spool system is on a different host to the spool work process. This remote host is called the target host.

For information about the optimal planning of your print architecture, see Planning the SAP Print Architecture.

Every architecture requires a specific print method that is explained in the corresponding sections: