Topics under this message are: 

• Adobe forms and how to use them?
• Difference between Adobe forms and Smart forms / Scripts.
• Where do we use this?
• What do i need to know to work on these?

Adobe forms : This is another SAP tool designed to create your own forms. The transaction for this is SFP.

How to use them: You can create a sales order form in adobe form and send to the sales reps. Sales reps can fill this form when they are not connected to internet / SAP system. Once they connect to SAP just send an e-mail to a specific user id in outlook. You got to customize and code how do you want to process once you receive this form. This enables you to create orders even when you are not connected to the system. Hence no data loss. This is not how i used though :-). This is just my idea.

What is the difference between Adobe forms and smart forms / scripts.

Smart forms / scripts are used to show the data in SAP. Most likely you will use these to print / display some kind of reciepts / forms. Many companies must be using this for hard copies / ALE / EDI or to transfer data from SAP to others.

Adobe forms are used to post data into SAP from SAP too.  So this has an additional feature compared to smartforms.

Where do we use this: You can use for offline forms usage, and as like smartforms to print.

What do i need to know to work on these?

You just need to know ABAP. It is beneficiary if you know java script. But it hardly matters. If i can do without knowing Java script, you can do the same. Same with XML.

Transaction for doing this is SFP and this runs on netweaver.

Have fun with forms. It is very easy to design the forms in Adobe forms. It is as good as dragging and dropping. You can add list boxes, check boxes, radio-buttons.

Thanks

Pavan