Using Preview when printing from SAP

Question

Just starting to use SAP Java GUI on the Mac and one of the 1st items I discovered was the inflexibility for printing. I would need to define the printer in the preferences of the SAP Java GUI and then anytime I would print it would just go to that printer.
Problem with this is that sometimes I work from within the office, and sometimes from home with as a result that my printer changes.
When on Windows, I also often performed a print from within SAP but then selected the Adobe PDF printer instead so that I had a resulting PDF file.
What I thus really wanted was for anytime I print from SAPGUI to the local printer to get a print dialog just like it does on Windows. I checked around but could not find anything to replace the lp command with on Mac that would then provide this. As a work-around I developed the following small script instead. Now instead of just printing, the print-out will be shown in Preview as a PDF. From here I can then save it as a PDF, print it, mail it, .... anything else one can do with Preview.
This is not the exact solution I wanted as I wanted to just get a print dialog; but this gets me a lot closer to it.
See next post (hopefully as I am having issues posting) for script & steps.

Answer 1

Instructions:
First, make sure that printing is setup for SAP Java GUI. There is sufficient information out there but main items are that the printer within SAP is defined with method G and that the device type os POST2 (for postscript). Also ensure that under output attributes Color printer is checked.
Next create the script. I put it in the /Applications/SAP Clients folder but it can be put anywhere you like. You can name the script however you like, I named it SAPLPD.
First thing the script does is converting the postscript file to PDF and storing it in the user's temporary directory. It adds the timestamp to the filename just to ensure there are no duplicated. It then opens the PDF file using Preview. It will wait for 1 second after which it will remove the file created.
It also looks that all the files in this temporary directory are automatically removed by OSX, so even should the file not have been removed; on next logout (I think) the file will be removed anyhow.
Script:
The script is:
#!/bin/bash
timestmp=`date +%Y%m%d%H%M%S`
/usr/bin/pstopdf -i -o $TMPDIR/sap_print_$timestmp_$$.pdf
open -a /Applications/Preview.app $TMPDIR/sap_print_$timestmp_$$.pdf
sleep 1
rm $TMPDIR/sap_print_$timestmp_$$.pdf
Once you have created the script it needs to be made executable. Do this by open the Terminal, changing to the location where you saved the script and entering the command:
chmod a+x (script name)
So in my case I would have entered the following 2 commands in Terminal:
cd "/Application/SAP Clients"
chmod a+x SAPLPD
Last but not least is changing the command the SAP Java GUI uses for printing. Go into preferences for the SAP Java GUI and go to the Printing section (under Desktop). There for the Print Spooler entry which is currently set to /usr/bin/lp you change that to the script. So for me I have:
/Applications/SAP Clients/SAPLPD
Easiest way to do this is by using the Browse button and then going to where the script is. No parameters are passed to the script so everything else can be removed. What I have is exactly what I show a few lines above.
And that is it, when now printing from SAP it opens the print-out in Preview and from there I can select my printer options etc.
Use of the script is on your own risk. It works for me but there is no guarantee that it will work for you.
Would love to hear about any other options.