PRTDEF Procedure

Example 2: Creating a Ghostview Printer in SASUSER to Preview PostScript Printer Output in SASUSER

Features:

PROC PRTDEF statement options: :: DATA=; LIST; REPLACE

Details

This example creates a Ghostview printer definition in the SASUSER library for previewing PostScript output.

Program

data gsview;
name = "Ghostview";
desc = "Print Preview with Ghostview";
model= "PostScript Level 2 (Color)";
viewer = 'ghostview %s';
device = "Dummy";
dest = " ";

proc prtdef data=gsview list replace;
run;

Program Description

Create the GSVIEW data set, and specify the printer name, printer description, printer prototype, and commands to be used for print preview. The GSVIEW data set contains the variables whose values contain the information that is needed to produce the printer definitions. The NAME variable specifies the printer name that will be associated with the rest of the attributes in the printer definition data record. The DESC variable specifies the description of the printer. The MODEL variable specifies the printer prototype to use when defining this printer. The VIEWER variable specifies the host system commands to be used for print preview. GSVIEW must be installed on your system and the value for VIEWER must include the path to find it. You must enclose the value in single quotation marks because of the %s. If you use double quotation marks, SAS will assume that %s is a macro variable. DEVICE and DEST are required variables, but no value is needed in this example. Therefore, a “dummy” or blank value should be assigned.

data gsview;
name = "Ghostview";
desc = "Print Preview with Ghostview";
model= "PostScript Level 2 (Color)";
viewer = 'ghostview %s';
device = "Dummy";
dest = " ";

Specify the input data set that contains the printer attributes, create the printer definitions, write the printer definitions to the SAS log, and replace a printer definition in the SAS registry. The DATA= option specifies GSVIEW as the input data set that contains the printer attributes. PROC PRTDEF creates the printer definitions. The LIST option specifies that a list of printers that are created or replaced will be written to the SAS log. The REPLACE option specifies that a printer definition will replace a printer definition in the registry if the name of the printer definition matches a name already in the registry. If the printer definition names do not match, then the new printer definition is added to the registry.

proc prtdef data=gsview list replace;
run;