TEMPLATE Procedure: Creating Table Templates

Overview: ODS Table Templates

Using the TEMPLATE Procedure to Create or Customize Tabular Output

The TEMPLATE procedure enables you to customize the tabular appearance of your SAS output. With the TEMPLATE procedure, you can create and modify table templates, column templates, header templates, and footer templates. The Output Delivery System then uses these templates to produce customized tabular output for better data presentations and reports than what you get with the default SAS output. You can also create you own master tables using templates.

By default, ODS output is formatted according to the various definitions or templates that the procedure or DATA step specify. However, you can customize existing tabular output templates, or create your own new tabular output templates, by using the TEMPLATE procedure with these statements.

PROC TEMPLATE Statements

Customization	Element Modified	Statement
Column presentation	Column template	DEFINE COLUMN Statement
Table footer	Footer template	DEFINE FOOTER Statement
Table header	Header template	DEFINE HEADER Statement
Single output object	Table template	DEFINE TABLE Statement
An existing template for a table, column, header, or footer	Table, column, header, footer	EDIT Statement

What You Can Do with a Table Template

Default Listing and RTF Display of an Output Object

By default, ODS uses the table template specified by the procedure or DATA step to create ODS output. For example, the following display shows the default LISTING output of the Moments output object created by PROC UNIVARIATE. The second display shows the default RTF output of the same output object.

LISTING Output from PROC UNIVARIATE (Default Moments Table)

RTF Output of Sales Statistics from PROC UNIVARIATE (Default Moments Table)

Customized Version of the Listing and RTF Display of an Output Object

With PROC TEMPLATE, you can change many of the table elements and obtain a customized format for the output objects. Here are some of the elements that you can change:

the color and the font of the text of the first table header
the justification of the first table header
the setting of the table attributes UNDERLINE and OVERLINE
the line spacing between the rows

Note: Not all table template changes affect all destinations. For example, font changes are ignored in the LISTING destination.

The following displays show the results of using a customized table template that changes the first table header attributes, sets underlining and overlining in the table, and changes the amount of spacing between rows.

LISTING Output from PROC UNIVARIATE (Customized Moments Table)

RTF Output of Sales Statistics from PROC UNIVARIATE (Customized Moments Table)