SUPPORT / SAMPLES & SAS NOTES
Problem Note 36155: Microsoft Excel cannot open a file that is created from a SAS® data set that exceeds Excel file specifications
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A SAS EXPORT procedure similar to the following creates an Excel file from a SAS data set, even when the number of rows in that data set exceeds the number of rows allowed by the XLS file format:
proc export data=work.prdsale
outfile="c:\documents and settings\Excel-file.xls"
dbms=xls replace;
run;
Even though the XLS file specifications are exceeded, the SAS® generates a note saying that the file was created successfully:
NOTE: The export data set has 115200 observations and 10 variables. NOTE: "C:\documents and settings\toobig.xls: file was successfully created.
However, when you attempt to open that file in Excel, the following error message appears:
File error: data may have been lost
To avoid this problem, be sure that your SAS data set does not contain more than 65536 rows.
Operating System and Release Information
| Product Family | Product | System | SAS Release | |
| Reported | Fixed* | |||
| SAS System | SAS/ACCESS Interface to PC Files | Microsoft® Windows® for 64-Bit Itanium-based Systems | 9.2 TS1M0 | 9.3 TS1M0 |
| Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Datacenter 64-bit Edition | 9.2 TS1M0 | 9.3 TS1M0 | ||
| Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Enterprise 64-bit Edition | 9.2 TS1M0 | 9.3 TS1M0 | ||
| Microsoft Windows XP 64-bit Edition | 9.2 TS1M0 | 9.3 TS1M0 | ||
| Microsoft® Windows® for x64 | 9.2 TS1M0 | 9.3 TS1M0 | ||
| Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Datacenter Edition | 9.2 TS1M0 | 9.3 TS1M0 | ||
| Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition | 9.2 TS1M0 | 9.3 TS1M0 | ||
| Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Standard Edition | 9.2 TS1M0 | 9.3 TS1M0 | ||
| Microsoft Windows XP Professional | 9.2 TS1M0 | 9.3 TS1M0 | ||
| Windows Vista | 9.2 TS1M0 | 9.3 TS1M0 | ||