The Graphics Output Environment

Maintaining the Quality of Your Image Across Devices

When you want to write a program that produces the same graphics output on two different devices, you can use features in SAS/GRAPH to simplify the process.

Maintaining Proportions

You can use percent of the graphics output area (PCT) as the unit of measure when specifying text size to make sure that text is proportional across devices. For example, a one-inch-high title might be appropriate on a standard piece of paper, but a title of this size uses almost all of the display area of a slide. To make units of percentage the default for size specifications, use the GUNIT= graphics option:

goptions gunit=pct;

You can also specify PCT anywhere you specify a size:

axis1 label=(height=3 pct 'Year');

See GUNIT for a complete description of the GUNIT= graphics option.

Getting the Colors You Want

Since ODS styles are designed to provide optimal results for a variety of devices, you use the STYLE= option in the ODS statement to chose a style best suited for your device. For example, you might want to chose the ODS style Journal since it works well with black and white devices. You can also set a different style for each ODS output destination. For information on ODS styles and destinations see Specifying Devices And Styles With Multiple Open Destinations. You can compare colors and patterns for different devices and choose the device that has the fewest colors. A slide camera, for example, offers over 16 million colors from which to chose, but some graphics monitors display significantly fewer colors.

Previewing Your Output

You can preview the appearance of the output on a different device with the TARGETDEVICE= graphics option. For example, to see how the output looks on a color PostScript printer, specify as follows:

goptions targetdevice=pscolor;

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