SAS Output

Output Delivery System

The SAS Output Delivery System (ODS) gives you greater flexibility in generating, storing, and reproducing SAS procedure and DATA step output, with a wide range of formatting options. ODS provides formatting functionality that is not available when using individual procedures or the DATA step without ODS. ODS overcomes these limitations and enables you to format your output more easily.

Before Version 7, most SAS procedures generated output that was designed for a traditional line-printer. This type of output has limitations that prevents you from getting the most value from your results:

Traditional SAS output is limited to monospace fonts. With today's desktop document editors and publishing systems, you need more versatility in printed output.
Some commonly used procedures produce printed output but do not create an output data set. Many times it would be very convenient to produce not only printed output but also an output data set that you could use as input to another SAS procedure or to a DATA step.

For complete information about the Output Delivery System, see the SAS Output Delivery System: User's Guide.

Top of Page