SAP Scripts - Data Formats

Data formats are used to define style and forms and is also known as Interchange Text Format (ITF). All the texts created using SAPscript has a specific data format. The data format consists of two fields −

• Format Field
• Actual Line Contents

Certain elements for this ITF format are fixed, / for a new line.

ITF elements are used to define styles and forms. Even these attributes are not maintained in ITF format. The composer prepares an ITF text for output that is converted into a format that represents the print version and this is called Output Text Format (OTF).

Raw Data Output Format

To get the print output, these techniques can be used −

• SAPScript
• SmartForms
• PDF-based Print Forms

SAPScript allows you to use raw data output format where the output mode is defined in script itself or in runtime in the print program. The preferred format to use here is Raw Data Interface because of less overhead and compact spool files.

You have to select SAPscript formatting in RDI output mode.

When you compare SAPScript formatting with SmartForms and PDF-based print forms, Smartforms are an advancement of SAPScript and are used to get XML-based raw data output in XSF format. PDF-based Print Forms provide raw data output format known as XFP with or without context evaluation.