Form Output Format
You want to send your form to an output medium. This can be a printer, a fax, e-mail, or even output as an XML document. For these output medium, SAP provides different output formats, such as OTF, XSF, and HTML.
1. OTF (Output Text Format)
In classical form output, you print forms on the printer. SAP Smart Forms provides the form in the Output Text Format (OTF). The Output Text Format (OTF) is the established SAP output format for printing forms. It consists of a number of simple, device-independent commands, thus allowing output to be directed to different output devices such as line printers and laser printers, or as an on-screen print preview. OTF is an explicit output format, which means that once SAP Smart Forms has generated an OTF output, no modifications can be made.
OTF is set as the default in the Form Builder. OTF is usually output using spool processing. For this output, a printer must be set up in the system with a device type that understands OTF.
2. XSF (XML for SAP Smart Forms)
XSF stands for XML for Smart Forms and is an XML schema designed for the output of form contents. XSF output does not contain any layout information. Using XSF output, external applications outside the SAP System can access and process the contents of forms.
To output XSF using spool processing, at least one printer of type ‘XSF’ must be set up in the system.
3. HTML
The simple XSF output does not contain any layout information. It is simply a data format that reflects the contents of the form. Therefore, a Web browser displays only the hierarchical structure of an XSF output. However, you can use SAP Smart Forms to transform XSF output to HTML. You can then integrate this HTML output into your Internet application in order to complete your business processes via electronic media rather then using printed mail. If you display a form in HTML format, you call this form an interactive web form or simply a web form
4. PDF (Portable Document Format)
Adobe® Portable Document Format (PDF) is a universal file format that contains all fonts, formats, and graphics. PDF files are widely used in the Internet, not least because the content of a PDF file cannot be changed, in contrast to Word. You can view PDF files using the Adobe® Acrobat Reader – a tool that is provided free of charge with Adobe.
Smart Forms does not support direct output in PDF format. Instead, the OTF output has to be converted to PDF. Fonts and code pages used (particularly with Asian languages) have to be correct in the OTF output and are dependent on the language in which the form is printed. Depending on the language, a different device type that supports the corresponding fonts has to be used for printing.
Use function module CONVERT_OTF to convert OTF to PDF (set import parameter FORMAT to ‘PDF’). The prerequisite for this is that OTF is returned as a table in the application program.
5. ITF (Interchange Text Format)
ITF isn’t the output format of SAP forms, but the definition format of SAPscript. It is used to describe styles and forms. The ITF format is a readable format that means, it contains only those characters of the character set that come “behind” the blank character. Characters smaller than the blank character are not used in the ITF format. The ITF format consists of two parts, the format field and the actual line contents. Certain elements of the format are fixed (for example, the paragraph format ‘/’ for a new line or ‘/:’ to identify the line contents as a control statement). Other elements, such as names of paragraph or character formats can be defined by the user when maintaining the styles and forms.
For more information regarding form output, please visit http://help.sap.com/saphelp_nw70/helpdata/EN/b0/3a6180d1d411d4b645006094192fe3/frameset.htm