The Output Delivery System (ODS) enables you to customize
the content of your output, choose how your output is formatted, and
customize the appearance of your output. Examples of output formats
are HTML, PDF, RTF, and LISTING.
Important features of
ODS include the following:
-
ODS destinations produce the following
types of output:
-
traditional monospace output
-
-
an ODS document that contains a
hierarchical file of the output objects
-
-
output such as PostScript and PDF
that is formatted for a high-resolution printer
-
output that is formatted in a markup
language
such as HTML and XML
-
RTF output that is formatted for
use with Microsoft Word
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ODS provides table templates
that
define the structure of the output from SAS procedures and from the
DATA step. You can customize the output by modifying these table templates
or by creating your own.
-
ODS enables you to choose an individual
output object to be formatted in a different way. For example, PROC
UNIVARIATE produces multiple output objects. You can easily create
HTML output, one or more output data sets, LISTING output, or printer
output from one or all of these output objects.
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ODS stores a link to each output
object in the
Results window of the SAS windowing
environment.
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SAS output formatting is now centralized
in ODS. When ODS destinations are added, they are automatically made
available to the DATA step and all procedures that support ODS.
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ODS enables you to produce output
for numerous business applications from a single source. This feature
saves you time and system resources because you can produce multiple
types of output with a single run of your procedure or data query.
For example, you can create output formatted for Microsoft Excel,
Adobe Acrobat, and Microsoft Word.