Using Printer Resident Fonts

Summary
The purpose of this document is to explain how to configure Adobe Document Services running on SAP Interactive Forms by Adobe so that printed output can use a printer resident font.

Overview
In order to use a printer resident font, modifications to the appropriate XDC configuration file residing on the SAP server must be made. These changes can be made using the Adobe XDC Editor. In order to make these changes, certain information about the printer will first have to be acquired.

Background
Printer Resident Fonts are fonts that are stored inside the printer. The form factor for a printer resident font could be a special hardware cartridge or the font could be built into the printer's memory. For PostScript printers, only the name of the font is required. For PCL printers, it is necessary to define an escape sequence of characters. The names of the printer resident fonts can be obtained from the front panel of the printer or by using the printer's built in web server (if available). SAP Interactive Forms by Adobe can render different formats (PDF, PCL, PostScript, ZPL) by using a special print driver and an XML based configuration file called an XDC. These XDC files reside on the ADS server. When a template (XDP) and data (XML) are rendered, part of the configuration specifies which XDC to use.

Required Steps
1. Identify the name of the printer resident font that you wish to use. 2. Specify the name of the printer resident font in the template that is to be rendered or use the SAP Cascading Font configuration to map a font used in the templates to the printer resident font on this printer. 3. Download the Adobe XDC Editor from: https://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/sdn/nw-appservertools

4. Locate the most suitable XDC file to use for your printer based on the type of output to be rendered (PostScript or PCL) and using a copy of the XDC file, make the appropriate changes to the XDC file. 5. Upload the newly modified XDC file to the server.

Step 1: Identify the name of the printer resident font

There are a number of ways to find the list of printer resident fonts: 1. Use the front panel on the printer to print out a list of fonts. 2. If the printer has a built in web server, use your web browser to request the printer to print out a list of fonts. 3. Consult the printer's technical reference manual. You can usually locate the reference manual online: Manufacturer HP Ricoh Lexmark Web Site Use search term: "HP Printer Manual" http://www.ricoh-usa.com/downloads http://www.lexmark.com/publications/techref.html

For PCL Printers, you have to identify the escape sequence of PCL characters which are to be used. For example, to use the "Courier" font on a Lexmark 644 PCL printer. the sequence required is: <ESC/>&amp;t0P<ESC/>(19U<ESC/>(s0p<var name="fontPitch" />h0s0b4099T The list of escape sequences for the printer resident fonts appear on the generated list. Notes on entering the escape sequences:
Latin2 Shift-JIS GBK Hanguel Big5 <Esc/>(2N <Esc/>(19K <Esc/>(18C <Esc/>(19H <Esc/>(18T

Sometimes the font map shows the full sequence including the above encoding:

and sometimes the encoding is left open. In this case you must use the encoding form the table above.

For PostScript printers, only the name of the font is required.

Step 2: Specify the name of the font in the template

Using the Adobe Designer, you can specify the name of the font by entering the name in the Font Palette. Normally a font is selected from the drop down list, but Adobe Designer does permit you to enter a font name.

Font Mapping If you do not wish to modify the template or you a large number of templates that wish to use a specific font, then you can map a font in a template to a printer resident font using the cascading font feature built into SAP.

Step 3: Locate the appropriate XDC file and modify using the XDC editor.
You will modify the XDC file with the Adobe XDC editor (see screen shot below). The Adobe XDC Editor is an Eclipse based editor and can be downloaded from:
https://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/sdn/nw-appserver-tools

To access the XDC files, follow the instructions in the XDC editor documentation. For PostScript printing, there are XDC files containing the letters "PS" (e.g. "HP4350PS.XDC"). The same is true for PCL printers.

Important Note:

1. Since the XDC is a critical file in the ADS rendering process, it is important that you make a copy of the file before you begin the editing process. 2. Also, since ADS will cache the XDC based on the ID attribute (not the filename), it is important that this ID value should be unique when making changes. You can force the ID attribute to be unique by using the File/Save As... command in the XDC editor the first time you save the file. This will ensure that the ID attribute has been modified. To make the change, select the "Fonts" tab: For PostScript printers, only the name is required. The screen will look like the following:

Important Note: When you are modifying the XDC file and entering the font name, be sure to double check it. Since the XDC editor is not connected to your printer it cannot check to make sure that you are specifying a valid name. For PCL printers, escape sequence (i.e. Font Sequence) is required: The screen will look like the following:

Important Note: When you are modifying the XDC file and entering the sequence, be sure to double check it. Since the XDC editor is not connected to your printer it cannot check to make sure that you are specifying a valid sequence.

Enter the values obtained in step #1 from the list of printer resident fonts.

Step 4: Upload the newly modified XDC file to the server.

1. Make sure you have used the "Save as..." command in the XDC editor to ensure that a unique ID has been created for this XDC file. 2. Upload the XDC file to the server. 3. You now need to associate the newly modified XDC file with the appropriate printer. Please consult Customer Note #685571 for more details. 4. If required, configure the SAP cascading fonts definition to map the fonts in the form design to the printer fonts. 5. Render a template using the modified XDC file and verify that the results are correct. If there is a problem with the output: 1. If there is an error message related to type of font, it is possible that made a mistake while entering the name of font or the sequence. 2. You can trace the font mappings to see what is taking place. If the configuration is set to trace font information, you can receive details on the mapping of fonts, including any errors that have taken place. 3. If there is no output in the printer at all, check the error log on the printer or try to obtain a copy of the spooled output file from the server. 4. Try rendering the output on another printer if possible.