Symptom
When printing goals or PM forms via a PDF, how are the page breaks being determined on the PDF version of a PM report, and can we control where the page breaks are?
Environment
SAP SuccessFactors Performance Management
Cause
System is working as designed. It is not possible in a practical sense to control the compilation of a PDF output.
Resolution
- In the PDF version of the PM form, the page break will appear when the blank place of the former page can’t hold the next content block. When this happens that content block will be printed in the next page as opposed to split across the current and next page. This is the system design and cannot be changed.
- A PM form can have many content blocks, and it can vary for every person depending on what each person enters. A form can typically have a section comment block, goal block in goal section, competency block in competency section, and custom blocks. Each of them will be treated as a content block. In a normal case, one content block will be printed in one page if it fits on that page. It is typically not split across 2 pages.
- Imagine a form where you have 3 content blocks, a goal section, a competency section, and custom info.
- Lets imagine each block for this person just happens to have about 2/3 of page content.
- You might expect that on page 1 you will print all the content of 1st block, + 1/3 of the 2nd block to fill the page. That would leave the remaining 1/3 of block 2 + the final block to all be printed on page 2. So all 3 sections (2/3 + 2/3 + 2/3) can all fit on just 2 pages.
- That scenario assumes that we would split a block of content any where its needed to fill a page.
- This is not the system compiles the PDF output.
- Rather, since each block will fit entirely on a single page, the PDF will output 3 pages so that each content block is fully printed on 1 page and not split across any pages. (each page has about 1/3 white space)
- This is just one example of how the PDF engine works. Of course when you consider that every single form can be different for people, it is not practical to imagine you can control the output with any consistency for all your employees. Some users may see large white space sections if just a small portion from block 1 flows over to page 2, but the content of block 2 will not all fit in the remaining space on page 2, so the system will print block 2 starting on page 3.
- Basically, the PDF output logic is not expected to try and print all content in as compact format as possible, rather the over-riding rule is that it will attempt to print content for a block all on 1 page if that is possible.
Keywords
SF, SuccessFactors, form, print, pdf, page, breaks, spaces, performance, break, content , KBA , sf printing , LOD-SF-PM-FF , Form Features, RTE, Spell Check, Legal Scan, Print , Problem
Product
SAP SuccessFactors HCM Core all versions ; SAP SuccessFactors Performance & Goals all versions