Device-Independent Datamatrix in Smartforms, Proof of Concept

Lately SAP note 2001392 has been released that allow printing of Datamatrix for some device types. There are also fonts and other 3rd party tools that allows you to print a datamatrix.

However most of these solutions have some specific requirements, as a workaround to this I created a proof of concept that allows for printing a datamatrix with minimal requriements.

The solution uses 2 tricks:

• Hardcore programming
• http://wiki.scn.sap.com/wiki/display/Snippets/Dynamic+Background+Colors+in+SmartForms

Only 10×10 datamatrices have been implemented, allowing it to contain up to 3 characters.

The code can be downloaded from https://github.com/larshp/Datamatrix

To test, run the report

and it will show the smartform as print preview

The smartform consists of a 10×10 template where the background colour of each cell is changed from ABAP,

This technique can be extended to QR, aztec and other 2d barcode symbologies.

Note: Do not regard this as best practice, however in some situations it might be beneficial to use this approach.