Smart forms, script and adobe forms are the different options which help us to generate the PDF output from SAP system. Basically these are used to meet the general business requirements to print the billing invoices, sales order, purchase order and many other documents. Also, based on the country specific requirements we may have to build PDF outputs in different languages other than English.
While developing the multilingual PDF forms there are some hiccups which we might come across. This will also depend on the methodology with which we are developing the PDF form. The intention of this blog is to make this process smooth.
If we are developing the PDF form in English, there is no extra activity involved. However while developing the PDF form in language other than English we have to take some extra efforts.
We will find lot of information on the net, about where to start and how to develop the smart forms. Here I have jotted down the difficulties which I have personally encountered while developing the PDF form
1. In case of the Adobe form, you can create floating text to reduce the number of the text symbols to be defined and at the run time, based on condition you can populate the floating text with the required language text.
2. Once you have completed developing the smart form in the required language it might sometimes show you the extra spaces between the words. However, it is just in the preview mode, so don’t panic!! Save that PDF file in desktop and check if it worked right.
3. In case the preview of PDF file is coming accurate along with the texts displayed in the required language and format, but when you are taking the print of the same PDF you may end up getting question marks . Now for this, check the output device setting maintain in the SPAD transaction for the selected output device. Select the output device and click on display. Then change the device type/select required device type and try printing with new device type. Basically it will be trial and error method, you have to check with it. You can also check with your BASIS team.
4. When creating the multilingual form, we need to maintain the SO10 texts in the respective language. However, in some cases while you are trying to create one, it might show the question marks (????) instead of the corresponding language text. In order to tackle this follow the below method.
Click on “Goto” tab –> “Change Editor”. Now copy the text and save
Hope the above points will help you while working with PDFs, especially for multiple languages.