Absolutely Fabulous: Tips on Creating a Publication-Ready
Contents
1. The REPORT procedure also has great functionality and PROC REPORT v eee Sia a eo esc flexibility in ODS opted for this output in my final table of the Bioigy Seeking Aeration BS E E E E 8 page which provides detailed enrollments and credentials ees i me oie en ou a 8 amp awarded by major over five years A five year difference is also gee a gg Me 2 Giles calculated on the department totals Se lS ER fe eS In essence the data set am working from has an observation Ls 6 se ee ke ee ae for each major by term and enrollment or degree The variables ee eg cael ook ee eee are described in the table below The details of the table may be 1 i 1 1 1 Overall Degree Program Slt 339 O80 7S 2S fi 7 a4 75 LE I6 MEN a bit difficult to explain but the takeaway is clear the REPORT a cea Sse Vso Tae ca Aaa Ee ed procedure allows maximum flexibility in creating style effects that will transform your table into a print ready design totals table Y N field designed to separate the sections majors and grand totals Distinguishes the type of variable major count or one of three subtotals major_desc enr_or_deg year SAS Global Forum 2011 Reporting and Information Visualization proc format You can use PROC FORMAT to create a color scheme value x_style In this example am using the color firebrick for all le ae U Haren negative numbers will assign this to the PCT_MAJ other black variable a computed variab2. r dea boi oe Dupi Eeer cdireen pera Ceoplicoded Cremna BOS 20 TT Te HAF ee OLDI ae OT Oe WEIS F Tra G Lie a8 iiS 6 i 133 a ig i 19 ay 7H 8 b W H e TH a 7 F 33 DECIDE HOW BEST TO ACHIEVE Departmental Information YOUR GOAL USING ODS Biology Department selected Absolute Layout but there are many options Some publications have found work well just by defining the number of columns and using the functionality of the Enrolment and Credentials Her ape s h n w STARTPAGE option Other publications may c work best with a gridded layout chose a 75 Absolute Layout for this project for four primary Pe a h a reasons HE Enokpens Creda 1 We had a one page design with a consistent layout on the page Ee Ja es G 2 We had a fixed number of rows for ps 2 e e r each table and thus ran no risk of poor as having more than one page per m an u n e n man department aa a a 3 Because knew wanted tabs at the margin edge found Absolute Layout gave me more control to accomplish this task ure 3 EE BE E n BE n 4 Because Absolute Layout has been in the works a little longer found it to be a little easier to work with and had mrp face aean peirer aaan fewer bugs than Gridded Layout at least in its current pre production form CREATING THE PAGE begin by setting the appropriate O
3. real tabs was prohibitive to the project Instead opted for a full bleed box that provided the desired effect without the extra expense There was a need to put footnotes at the bottom of each page Some footnotes were constant meaning that they were on every departmental page Others were page specific depending upon whether or not it was needed on the page For example the program closed footnote was only used on departmental pages where there were majors that had been discontinued The footer needed to contain the page number and the name of the publication 2010 Western Kentucky University Fact Book Illustration of the Final Page Design 1 Header W WKU 2 Student Table H w Gender Unduplicated e Mi ata Heackkount heme oa S07 Enraliment Pitirecrty B54 wa hate re aa 4 Major Table 5 Tab Ekip tig drone BS freee p brog bi p i Biogr Ba paip Mi BI D e i iT beensipitva Betrag EG ra 6 Bijen Technine BF arias 0 Baer gee pes Geet EF feel iF Chreai Ubedeegredieste fingre Progra itt Beep biri WEE RH Bopp HI aes FE Overall Gapdvere Deptt Prije i eared Degree Program eit Grane Temi a 6 Footnotes ikea ed ee ce eed eet eel el a a PN i ky s alpy taei an oau mallan manr med me Laie Na ala sm7 madin ar ye Ja va je pee a Se eag ari Pog im 7 Footer Fall 2003 Student Prote Biology Status racial i Average ALT II La Averoge G e ars
4. Proceedings of SUGI 30 Available at http Awww2 sas com proceedings sugi30 132 30 pdf e Zender Cynthia 2010 SAS Style Templates Always in Fashion Proceedings of the 2010 SAS Global Forum Available at http support sas com resources papers proceedings 10 033 2010 pdf CONTACT INFORMATION Your comments and questions are valued and encouraged Contact the authors at Gina Huff Chris James Tuesdi Helbig Ph D Office of Institutional Research Office of Institutional Research Office of Institutional Research 1906 College Heights Blvd 1906 College Heights Blvd 1906 College Heights Blvd 11011 11011 11011 Bowling Green KY 42101 Bowling Green KY 42101 Bowling Green KY 42101 270 745 3250 270 745 3250 270 745 3250 gina huff wku edu christopher james wku edu tuesdi helbigq wku edu SAS and all other SAS Institute Inc product or service names are registered trademarks or trademarks of SAS Institute Inc in the USA and other countries indicates USA registration Other brand and product names are trademarks of their respective companies 14
5. position the tab right on the edge of the paper use the GSLIDE procedure to create the red box and simple ODS TEXT code to assign the two character college code So that don t have to guess on placement of the letters for each college use the SYSEVALF macro function to determine letter placement 11 SAS Global Forum 2011 Reporting and Information Visualization gant A anti ay A et osi t ions or the tabs amp etters get y positi f h b i kj S6let my_y 7 00 6let my_y2 ssysevalf amp my_y 0 50 6let my_y3 ssysevalf amp my_y 0 75 ecode for tabs ods region x 0 00 in y amp my_y in width 0 40 in height 1 50 in goptions reset all cbhack firebrick proc gsilide note run guit ods region x 0 00 in y amp my_y2 in width 0 30 in ods text style font_face calibri fontweight bold S ods region x amp my_x in y amp my_y3 in width 0 30 in ods text style font_face calibri fontweight bold C TIPS AND TIDBITS GSLIDE Your Way to Attractive Tabs SYSEVALF lets you calculate floating point numbers Please note that for the actual production program used another macro to pull each character of the two character college code field that fed the ODS TEXT statement fontsize 20pt just c foreground white fontsize 20pt just c foreground white Again GSLIDE comes to the rescue when designing full bleed tabs Use a bold color to create your ta
6. providing a total headcount within the ODS TEXT output for each department create a macro variable using CALL SYMPUT that counts students in each department First use a DATA _NULL_ statement and do a count of the students in the department s table create a macro variable that call MY _HEADCOUNT to put into the ODS TEXT statement data _null_ set my_dept_table end last count 1 if last then call symput my_ headcount put count commall run When testing I use the PUT statement so that I can verify the value Spout amp my_headcount of the newly created macro the value will be written to the log specify the region and then define the ODS TEXT style and text passage using the macro variable just created ods region x 0 60 in y 2235 1n width 1 00 in ods text style font_face calibri fontsize 12pt just center fontweight bold Unduplicated Headcount Enrollment style fontsize 10pt amp my_ headcount use the macro amp MY_HEADCOUNT created above opt hug iA TIPS AND TIDBITS The Value of Using Macro Variables You can easily incorporate macro variables into the ODS TEXT statement for an elegant and automated way of combining department specific information with static text CALL SYMPUT and LET Statements are examples of ways you can create macro variables for use within ODS TEXT To create the tables in the Student Profile Section use a combination of procedures and style statements to
7. the Tips and Tidbits below for a quick overview of some of the considerations made when planning the style of the page a TIPS AND TIDBITS A Few Helpful Tips on Thoughtful Page Design Employ the KISS Method The acronym KISS short for Keep It Simple Sweetie is very important in design Michael Kohrs a famous American fashion designer suggests that you edit your outfit after you dress remove one accessory to keep yourself looking sheik and understated propose that the same is true in print design Think of all the clever accessories you could use like clip art fancy borders elaborate fonts and the like Decide which elements truly add to the conveyance of your message keep the ones that add and ditch the rest Stick to a Grid Just because ODS LAYOUT has complete flexibility allowing you to stick anything anywhere on the page doesn t mean you that should Using a columnar layout like the one shown on the previous page makes for an attractive and organized page Readers shouldn t have to search to find order and meaning to your layout Don t Rule Out Familiar Fonts What s wrong with Arial and Times New Roman Fact is THIS paper uses Arial throughout Oftentimes a common font provides a sense of familiarity and consistency to the reader As SAS programmers we pride ourselves in providing significant meaningful data to our constituents a kitschy font may actually take away from that message As a g
8. you only pull the applicable department in your data sets and or procedures Here used the WHERE statement am showing one at left for demonstration but had to subset multiple data sets for this publication Always be sure to END your DO Loop and MEND your Macro Aside from forgetting a semicolon this is probably my most frequent mistake When creating my ODS Layout Publication found it helpful to create a macro that would allow me to only run one specific department That way didn t have to do a full run every time added an element This has also come in handy for adhoc requests often get a specific department that wants as of today data on Fact Book information By creating a macro that allows me to only run one department can quickly get the information the department head needs 12 TAKE IT TO THE NEXT LEVEL FUNCTIONALITY AS A STORED PROCESS A SAS Stored Process gives Base code writers a way to transform Base SAS code into a flexible parameter driven web application via the web A SAS program can be easily converted into a Stored Process that generates ODS output with the addition of Stored Process macro variables including ProcessBody amp STPBEGIN and amp STPEND These macro variables serve as a wrapper for the SAS program so that it can be executed in many of programs included in the SAS EBI suite Rather than manually including the Stored Process variables in Base SAS IR uses SAS Enterpris
9. E S referencing the column numbers run patt TIPS AND TIDBITS The Compute Block is Great for Styling in PROC REPORT found the compute block to be a powerful and flexible way to create styles customized for specific row types could easily define a basic background color and medium font weight for the detail lines and then create bolder styles for subtotals and grand totals Art Carpenter provides a thorough overview of the compute block in his 2008 Global Forum Paper PROC REPORT Compute Block Basics Part I Tutorial The paper can be found at http wwwe2 sas com proceedings forum2008 031 2008 pdf ACCENTUATE THE FOOTNOTES ODS TEXT was again my method of choice when creating footnotes However a bit of complexity was added to the creation of the footnotes because some departments needed a third footnote and some did not again used the power of MACROS to create a custom fit for each department First used CALL SYMPUT in the data step to determine if there were any closed programs for the given department 10 data dept majors I use the PGM_CLOSED flag to determine set majors end last whether or not a third footnote is needed in where Maj_depl emy dept the macro variable MY_FN If the program is rocan need in closed also concatenate triple asterisks to if pom closed Y then do the major description that will designate the NeeG n 7 footnote created below maJ desc cats maJ desc end if last an
10. PTIONS for my page options orientation aaa Defines an 8 x 11 page papersize letter nodate J Suppresses date and page numbers from appearing on pdf nonumber topmargin 0Olin bottommargin 00lin Margins have to be greater than zero To be able to print to the edge leftmargin 00lin of the page define the most nominal margin allowable rightmargin 0011n ods noproctitle Suppresses unwanted procedure titles ods escapechar Defines the character that will call inline formatting Select a rarely used character like the caret chosen at left title Clear all titles and footnotes In my opinion ODS TEXT offers more footnote flexibility and control in ODS LAYOUT so I opted for ODS TEXT to create headers footers and table headings Next define the pdf output delivery system and style Creating a pdf output is quite straightforward in SAS It uses a wrapper or sandwich method meaning that you initiate the pdf at the beginning and then close it at the end ods pdf file c factbook pdf ta QUICK NOTE PROC TEMPLATE and ODS LAYOUT style calibri_pdf CALIBRI_PDF is not a SAS supplied style but one that created using the parent style PRINTER chose PRINTER because it was a very simple and clean style making it quite easy to modify Because the use of the TEMPLATE procedure is outside the scope of this paper won t go into the details of designing the template however have included som
11. Paper 293 2011 Absolutely Fabulous Tips on Creating a Publication Ready Report using ODS Absolute Layout Functionality Gina Huff Western Kentucky University Bowling Green KY Tuesdi Helbig Ph D Western Kentucky University Bowling Green KY Chris James Western Kentucky University Bowling Green KY ABSTRACT Are you using SAS but formatting in Excel or Word Are you creating SAS output just to turn right around and re enter the data into publishing software i e Microsoft Publisher Adobe InDesign to create a report that is oublication ready If you re like me you dreamed of the day that you could create SAS Output that was Absolutely Fabulous output that could take you straight from SAS program to finished report Dream no more ODS LAYOUT is here Although still pre production in version 9 2 have found ODS LAYOUT to be a powerful user friendly way of putting multiple data elements on the page Couple that with the styling capabilities of SAS procedures and other ODS statements and you are well on your way to creating your own Absolutely Fabulous Report This paper will take you on a tour of the tools used along with some helpful tips words of caution and valuable resources Hopefully by the end of the paper you will be inspired to create your own custom report in ODS LAYOUT INTRODUCTION The Office of Institutional Research IR at Western Kentucky University is responsible for the production and distribution of
12. ame on the page header Because want it aligned with the section header use the same horizontal x location but push the vertical y starting point down slightly ods region x 1 75 in y 0 75 1ni ods text style font_face calibri fontsize 18pt just left fontstyle italic amp my_dept_desc Department Some may argue that my next tip is an archaic way to create a single rule underneath the header but simply respond that it was a quick and easy way used the line stroke on the keyboard and experimented until had enough strokes to go all the way across the page Sometimes quick and easy overrides elegant ods region x 0 50 in y 0 95 in ode teeta eee eee 3 Since am in the groove of creating text can quickly Figure 4 Footer Design create the footer line again using the power of ODS TEXT and in line formatting In the code below note that the vertical y position is the same for each The first text field is left justified and the second is right justified giving it the proper appearance on the page ods region x 0 50 in y 10 50 an ods text style font_face calibri fontsize 9pt just left fontstyle italic Page thispage The command this page will be replaced with the page number If you also want the last page asin Page __of__ use A this page of last page ods region x 0 50 in y 10 950 0 width 7 25 in Notice that the width has been defined Otherwis
13. b and then overlay your desired text Because used a simple two digit college code was able to simply place one character on the first field and one character on the second field I m sure there are other options to create the look YOU desire COMPLETE THE LOOK WITH VALUABLE LOOPS The real power of this program is that it allows me to loop through colleges and departments creating pages for over 50 different units at the push of the running man This is made possible by wrapping the ODS LAYOUT code ina macro that loops through each department creating the page s desired during each loop 2 proc sql noprint select count maj_dept into dcount mydepts separated by from select distinct maj_dept from depts GULE smacro my_loop 6do k 1 Sto amp dcount Slet my_dept scan amp mydepts amp k S6let my_headers dept S6let my_dept_desc 6sysfunc putc amp my_dept data table set dept_table where maj_dept run amp my_dept insert code here Send smend my_loop smy_loop TIPS AND TIDBITS Create a Test Mode ox dept This SQL code pulls each department from a data set called DEPTS and creates a count and listing of them The count and listing is then used to loop through each dept The DO loop references the department count DCOUNT created in the SQL above The MY_DEPT macro variable will reflect the department currently being called in the loop Make sure
14. column running man and watch my absolutely fabulous publication 7 25in appear 0 5 im left margin Tupu TEPOWWOISE OF UIE aysu sp CREATE A TEMPLATE AND STYLE PROFILE When deadlines loom and time is scarce planning is often the part of the process that gets overlooked Instead of developing a strategy of what the page will look like and what information we need to include it is very tempting to just begin programming and hope for the best suggest however that when deadlines loom a good page plan will actually save time in the long run giving you the structure you need to quickly place elements on the page without falling into the time wasting chore of trial and error Note that even with a good page design you will have to invest some time testing and retesting placement however a good outline is worth its weight in gold when it comes to saving time and giving you a head start to success Here elected to use a two column format deciding to make the left column a little wider than the right allowed for additional space at the right margin we bound the book using a 9 spiral The final design template is pictured in Figure 1 complete with measurements for columns margin and alleys white space between columns Another important part of planning is to determine fonts and other style elements employ the Keep it Simple approach to design knowing that a clean and direct design is always a safe bet Look at
15. create the table formatted in the precise order and style desired proc format Create formats to transform codes into clear descriptions value x_race notsorted Use the NOTSORTED option to delineate the order of values 6 White 2 Black 1 3 5 Other 7 Not Supplied l value x_gender notsorted M Male HEN Temale run ods region x 1 75 in y lT in width 1 60 in proc tabulate missing The PRELOADFMT and ORDER options must both be included class race gender in the class statement along with the NOTSORTED option in the preloadfmt order data FORMAT procedure and a format assignment for the format s sort order to be utilized style fontweight bold The TABULATE procedure offers a great deal of flexibility and fontsize 10 5pt control in defining styles Tables gender Gender race Ethnicity style fontweight medium all n f commall style just c colpctn f 5 1 style background khaki just c style borderwidth 0 To remove borders you can define the STYLE in table options printmiss Use the PRINTMISS option to make all values print even if there are no students in the category misstext 0T If there are no students in the category the MISSTEXT option specifies that null values will be replaced with a zero keyword colpctn style background khaki format race x_race This is the last step in assigning sort order using PROC FORMAT gender Sx_gender You
16. d an accent font to enhance your report but remember ONLY add when it adds value to the report PLANNING THE PAGE Before you can build an absolutely fabulous publication you must know what information you want to communicate on the page In my case needed to provide constituents with information on their students demographics and classification as well as information on majors and degrees credentials awarded over time Ultimately decided would need to incorporate the following elements on my page They are also pictured in Figure 2 1 Header 2 Student Profile Table 3 Trend Graph 4 Detail Table 5 Tabs 6 Footnotes 7 Footer Figure 2 The header consists of our university logo the section header Departmental Information and the name of the department being presented i e Biology Department This table provides demographic information on each student in the department including data on race gender full part time status level graduate or undergraduate and test scores chose to use a line graph to provide an at a glance view of the departments enrollment and degrees awarded over a five year period Within a department there are specific majors that a student can select The number of enrollments and degrees awarded within each individual major needed to be reflected clearly in the table wanted readers to be able to quickly find each college section with minimal effort and the cost of
17. d need fn Y then call symputx my_fn Y run glet my_foot_style style font_face calibri fontsize 7pt just left fontweight medium fontstyle italic create a footnote style to avoid repetitive code enrollment footnote S6let my_fn_enrollments amp my_foot_style Duplicated enrollments count multiple majors and include all credential seeking students certificate associate baccalaureate masters rank specialist amp doctoral Fall stats reported credentials footnote 6let my_fn_credentials amp my_foot_style Duplicated credentials count multiple majors and include certificate associate baccalaureate rank masters specialist amp doctoral credentials awarded The academic year reported includes the summer fall amp spring For example the 2008 09 academic year would include degrees awarded in summer 2008 fall 2008 amp spring 2009 closed program footnote 6let my_fn_closed amp my_foot_style Program closed xthis code creates the proper footnotes based on the macro amp my_fn Smacro m_footnote Sif amp my_fn Y then ods text amp my_fn_enrollments newline amp my_fn_credentials newline amp my_fn_closed Selse ods text amp my_fn_enrollments newline amp my_fn_credentials Smend m_footnote The In line format NEWLINE inserts a line break where specified call the MACRO created above If the ods region x 0 50 in
18. ded direction in a host of options Background Shading Created Using As usual begin by defining the region for my background proc GsuUDE Instead of using a bordered edge will this time use a light shaded background to accentuate the table Because the new section begins in the second column move horizontally x to 5 35 inches with a width of 2 4 inches as the page template prescribes and keep the 3005 2006 2007 2008 2009 vertical position y and height the same as the previous GSLIDE outline for a strong horizon line a way of creating visual harmony and organization on the page PROC GPLOT S Enrolments Credentiais ods region x 5 35 in y 1 25 in width 2 40 in height 3 00 in reset all chack cornsilk proc gslide note run GULE goptions You will define background color in the GOPTIONS statement The ODS TEXT statement follows the same pattern as many of the statements you have seen previously with one exception You may note that reduce the font size of the asterisks This is purely an aesthetic call feel that the asterisks at the larger 12 point font are too bulky on the page and the slight reduction in size makes them less obtrusive The ease of adding another in line format using the ESCAPECHAR and style option make this and other style adjustments very easy to make ods region x 5 35 in y 1 50 in width 2 40 in ods text style font_face calibri fontsi
19. department contains a closed program y feo 1 the third footnote Program closed width 7 50 in will print Otherwise only the first two om_footnote footnotes will print ta QUICK NOTE Caution on Superscripts began footnoting intending to use the superscript function of ODS TEXT Although this is another great feature of In line Formatting it did not work in my situation The superscript caused an increase in the spacing between rows and the resulting numerals were simply too big After several unsuccessful attempts to remedy the situation and consulting the SAS Help Desk discovered that you cannot currently control the size of a superscript This has been reported and I m keeping my fingers crossed that it will be addressed in a future release FAUX CAN STILL BE FABULOUS MAKE STAND OUT TABS The printing cost of real tabs can be cost prohibitive To save money but still get an effective way to make each college easy to find create faux tabs using a full bleed The print shop can easily print the page on oversize paper 9 x 12 and then cut at the trim marks 812 x 11 to create the final look Note that if you just print to your office printer you will NOT get a full bleed The pdf will re size to fit within the pre defined S print area as defined by your printer C Because have already eliminated the margins and defined the whole page in ODS LAYOUT it is now easy to
20. e it would right justify to the edge of the page ods text style font_face calibri fontsize 9pt just right fontstyle italic amp my_fb_year Western Kentucky University Fact Book have utilized another macro variable here to indicate year amp my_fb_year Because will be running this program on an annual basis structured the program so that year can be changed once with a LET Statement at the beginning of the program and it will update throughout COMBINE MULTIPLE ELEMENTS TO CREATE A UNIFIED THEME ons text con 2009stucem Profile Biology One of the advantages and sometimes drawback of this en come project was that had an existing design in place that constituents Outline Unduplicated p pane had established a comfort level with and had come to depend on po ae inom ese MA liat am This became somewhat of a challenge when designing the student profile section as needed to match a rather complex configuration of tables and text Figure 5 at right shows all of the elements that ODS Text went into the final section In all used the GSLIDE procedure to create a BB EA ieena ieoa unifying border three ODS TEXT statements and three TABULATE Figure 5 Student Profile Section procedures to create this small section white 729 ESA Undergraduate 792 92 Blach The first section demonstrates creating a border using the GSLIDE procedure PROC GSLIDE was developed by SAS to make text slides s
21. e remarkable papers in the reference section that should assist you in designing your own custom templates insert code here ods pdf close The next step in creating a document using ODS Layout is similar to the ODS PDF statement start the ODS Layout function and end it in a similar wrapper method Because need to eliminate margins to allow for my full bleed tabs have to set up the width and height for the full size of the page again fudging just a bit to get it to provide me control over the entire page ods pdt file cr tacthook pdt style calibri_pdf ods layout start width 8 49in height 10 99in insert code here Place the ODS Layout Start code after the ODS PDF statement For the purposes of this paper am only creating one page You can however create multiple pages by calling multiple ODS Second page if desired Layout Statements start to end within the ODS PDF wrapper ods layout start width 8 49in height 10 99in ods layout end insert code here ods layout end End of optional second page ods pdf close A QUICK LOOK AT ODS REGION For each element that want to place on the page define a region for it using ODS REGION can define up to four different positions x y width and height for each element although they are not all always necessary chose to define the regions using inches in but SAS allows you to use other measurements i
22. e Guide to develop Stored Processes The Stored Process Wizard in Enterprise Guide makes the development process simple The first step asks for the name and location in metadata of your Stored Process The second step allows developers to include SAS code Any SAS syntax that directs ODS to create a file should be commented out The Stored Process macro variables initialize ODS instead of using the traditional ODS syntax ODS PDF FILE C Temp test pdf The next step asks for the execution server source file path source filename output options and data sources The source file path and filename represent the storage information on the execution server not in metadata The fourth step is where developers can integrate prompts parameters for the Stored Process This is where macro variables from the Base SAS program can be linked to prompts that allow users to customize their selection without knowing any code The last step is the SUMMARY PAGE CONCLUSION There is no doubt that SAS has the power to create effective publication ready reports using some of the flexible and powerful features we have grown to love and expect out of SAS By incorporating style elements from PROC TEMPLATE PROC FORMAT PROC TABULATE PROC REPORT PROC GSLIDE and PROC GPLOT into SAS s powerful Output Delivery System including ODS LAYOUT In Line Formatting and ODS TEXT and using the power of macros to automate and customize the output was able to create an att
23. eneral rule save Comic Sans and Pak Avenue for another day Top to Bottom and Left to Right In Western Culture we read from top to bottom and left to right Keep this in mind when designing your page You don t want the eye to be directed immediately to the bottom and or far right because the reader s eyes will naturally drift off the page Think about how someone will read the report and then design the document to follow that flow Make Your Headlines POP A good rule of thumb is to make your headlines titles 50 to 3 times bigger than the regular body copy to ensure that the eye is directed there first White Space is Your Friend You don t want to clutter the page It becomes very tempting to try and fit everything on one page especially with a powerful tool like ODS LAYOUT However too much black on the page makes it look daunting and discourages readers from taking a closer look As a general rule try to convey no more than three major themes in your report On the Fact Book page had a Student Profile block a Majors Degree graph and a Majors Degree table People Still Photocopy A good design prints just as well in black and white as it does in color Color can really enhance your publication but don t add color just for the sake of adding it Make sure it too supports the message Otherwise you will end up with color that detracts rather than directs In this publication for example added color to direct the eye
24. f ODS TEXT i i i i i find that ODS TEXT is the better option when creating headers and The Header pictured g Figure 3 at right will need to footers in ODS LAYOUT Save TITLE and FOOTNOTE statements include the university s logo a section header a page for regular ODS output header and a separator line at the bottom of the Header The Header will go across both columns and know that my logo is roughly 1 x 1 in size Just a reminder that this code is placed within both the ODS PDF and the ODS LAYOUT wrappers First will set the image WKU logo have defined on the page template shown on page 1 that need my left margin to begin a half inch into the page with a quarter inch margin at the top ods region x 0 50 in y peA 2oy ods text style preimage c wku_logo jpg Use the caret or whatever character you specified in the ODS ESCAPECHAR statement to initiate inline formatting and insert a jpeg image SAS recognizes both jpg and gif formats A a QUICK NOTE Be Aware of Your Margins or Lack Thereof Remember because am defining the ENTIRE page by setting the margins to 001in and defining the height and width in ODS Layout for the full page there are NO margins pre set If define a region with a zero width and height will literally be at the edge of the page Personally prefer having this kind of control of the page for a few important reasons it is easier f
25. le that will show the percent increase or percent decline over five years 7 run options linesize 256 ods region x 0 50 in y 4 50 in wida Tezo aN proc report nowd spLlit gt t style header fontsize 9pt cellpadding 3 columns totals_table code ods desc enr_or_deg year total 5 yr diff pct_maj define totals_table noprint group order data define code noprint group order data define ods_desc group style cellwidth 2 25in define enr or deg f across T T define year jf across nozero define total analysis sum define pct_maj comouved T style cellwidth 55in foreground x_style Call the format borderrightcolor black borderrightwidth 0 25pt just c compute after totals_table line endcomp compute code if code in t1 t2 then call derine row You can define a style within a EAE e a l oe a compute block Here am assigning a Dackgrounc comsi Tk background color of cornsilk to the else if code t9 then call define _row_ subtotals and a darker shade khaki acyle style fontweight bold to the grand total background khaki endcomp The compute block is a powerful compute pct_maj feature of the REPORT procedure wen wera ara i A 9 i Pa hoe Here have used it to calculate 5 year es E J pen Ee Ts difference on all of the total lines mae Eaa ee Salas subtotals and grand totals by E
26. must assign the format to the variable run Similar code for two additional tables is not shown wth i TIPS AND TIDBITS Using Color in ODS LAYOUT the Rainbow at Your Fingertips SAS ODS offers a full spectrum of color choices supporting the Hex RGB Red Green Blue color palette To get the Hex value for a color SAS Support directs users to visit http the light com colclick html where you can pick a color and immediately get the corresponding Hex value SAS also has a robust listing of color names that you may use have found the color table provided by Lauren Haworth in her SUGI 30 paper SAS with Style Creating your own ODS Style Templates for RTF Output a valuable resource http www2 sas com proceedings sugi30 132 30 pdf Print it and place it where it is easily accessible That way you will know exactly how the printed color will appear as it is often quite different than the way the color appears on screen have found the colors named and provided by SAS are adequate to handle the majority of my output needs use Firebrick and Cornsilk in this and many other IR publications GRAPHING FOR ODS LAYOUT CAN CREATE GREAT RESULTS elect to use a line graph in the second column of my publication page to provide an at a glance view of Figure 6 ODS Text Enroliments and Credentials 2005 2009 Line Graph enrollments and credentials awarded over time p Keeping with a consistent style and color palette provides nee
27. ncluding centimeters cm millimeters mm and percent of page pct Make sure you define the unit of measure or SAS will define your region in pixels an undesirable measure The basic syntax to create a region within ODS follows ods region x ___in x Starting position on the page horizontally y ___in y Starting position on the page vertically width ___in width the width of the element height 1n7 height the height of the element Some may view the extreme flexibility of ODS LAYOUT flexible enough even to overlap objects a drawback however view that as one of its greatest strengths It affords me the ability to build nice looking sections on a page complete with borders and or shading as well as combinations of multiple tables graphs and or text elements Without the flexibility ODS LAYOUT affords none of this would be possible An awareness of its capability will allow you to use it to its full extent and avoid simple overlap mistakes FABULOUS FROM HEAD TO FOOT Figure 3 Header Design Now that have the page setup complete and understand a little about ODS REGION it makes sense to tackle H Departmental Information Headers and Footers In line formatting makes this a WKU Biology Department breeze As mentioned previously a little bit of experimentation will be necessary but by using the page template set up before hand the guesswork is peee significantly reduced i TIPS AND TIDBITS The Value o
28. nhancements Proceedings of the 2009 SAS Global Forum Conference Available at http support sas com resources papers proceedings09 043 2009 pdf e O Conner Daniel and Huntley Scott 2008 Custom Reporting Using ODS Layout Power Point Slides Available at http support sas com rnd base early access index html 13 ODS PDF e Tilanus 2009 ODS 101 Proceedings of the 2009 SAS Global Forum Conference Available at http support sas com resources papers proceedings09 135 2009 pdf e Huntley Scott 2008 How to Add a Little Spice to Your PDF Output Proceedings of the 2008 SAS Global Forum Conference Available at http support sas com resources papers sgf2008 odspdf pdf e Lund Pete 2008 PDF Can be Pretty Darn Fancy Tips and Tricks for the ODS PDF Destination Proceedings of the 2008 SAS Global Forum Conference Available at http www2 sas com proceedings forum2008 033 2008 pdf PROC REPORT e Carpenter Arthur 2008 Proc Report Compute Block Basics Part Proceedings of the 2008 SAS Global Forum Available at http www2 sas com proceedings forum2008 031 2008 pdf e McMahill Allison 2007 Beyond the Basics Advanced PROC REPORT Tips and Tricks Proceedings of the 2007 SAS Global Forum Available at http support sas com rnd papers sgf07 sgf2007 report pdf PROC TEMPLATE e Haworth Lauren 2006 SAS with STYLE Creating your own ODS Style Template for RTF Output
29. o have been able to use it to create simple borders and backgrounds in ODS LAYOUT ods region x 0 50 in The border begins 12 from the left edge as defined on the page template y 1 25 in add about 1 2 from the last Header position to place the new element width 4 75 in The section will be one column in width or 4 helgny 300 in Guesstimation came into play on this measurement Once determined the size of the first table and added about an inch for white space and text came up with an estimated height and tweaked as needed goptions reset all proc gslide cframe black To create a border assign a frame color CFRAME wframe 2 Define the width of the frame using WFRAME runs guit RA if TIPS AND TIDBITS PROC GSLIDE for Borders and Backgrounds PROC GSLIDE is a straightforward way to create borders and shaded backgrounds As a general rule the GSLIDE procedure should be placed before the related output so that the border or background will be on the bottom layer with accompanying tables and or text layered on top of the GSLIDE output After creating the border move on to the three text elements in the Student Profile Section In the interest of space and time am providing code and explanation for the Unduplicated Headcount Enrollment text field only The other two ODS TEXT statements are straightforward and work in exactly the same way as those demonstrated in previous sections Because am
30. or me at least to conceptualize particularly when using a page template have control to nudge an individual table text or graph over into the margins a bit without affecting the entire page if either design or spacing concerns call for it and have ability to create a full bleed tab After setting the image use its approximate size to define the location of both the section header titled Departmental Information and page header Notice that don t have a need for the width and height nor did when inserting the image above because these elements are already a fixed width and height d 1 75 i PSS l S oa 0 40 a Notice that I use in line formatting ods text style font_face calibri fontsize 20pt again to define several style just left fontweight bold Departmental elements of the Header Information EE iA TIPS AND TIDBITS Using Your Page Layout Template to Determine ODS REGION Specs Using your page layout template and a little math will save lots of time when positioning items on the page How did decide to start the section and page headers 1 inches in from the edge of the page Knowing that 11 2 inches were already taken up by margins 2 inch and the jpeg image 1 inch added a little white space 1 4 inch in between for a starting position of 1 75 in Having a template took some of the guesswork out of positioning the region The page header uses a macro that will insert the correct department n
31. ractive ready to print design directly from SAS eliminating the time consuming and error prone step of transposing information into publishing software Although merely hit the tip of the surface as it relates to much of the functionality of these procedures and statements hope peaked your interest for exploring some of these powerful features and also provided you with resources and references to be able to dig even deeper into areas of particular interest utility You too can be absolutely fabulous using SAS ODS LAYOUT REFERENCES General Design e Few Stephen 2010 Designing Effective Tables and Graphs Retrieved from http www perceptualedge com images Effective Chart Design pdf e Krause Jim 2004 Design Basics Index Cincinnati Ohio How Design Books ODS ESCAPCHAR e Gebhart Eric 2009 Inline Formatting with ODS Markup Proceedings of the 2009 SAS Global Forum Conference Available at http support sas com resources papers proceedings09 222 2009 pdf e Zender Cynthia L 2007 Funny Stuff in My Code Using ODS ESCAPECHAR Proceedings of the 2007 SAS Global Forum Conference Available at http www2 sas com proceedings forum2007 099 2007 pdf ODS LAYOUT e Mays Rich 2007 ODS LAYOUT is Like an Onion Proceedings of SUGI 31 Available at http www2 sas com proceedings sugi31 159 31 pdf e O Conner Daniel and Huntley Scott 2009 Breaking New Ground with SAS 9 2 ODS Layout E
32. reports that provide information on university statistics including the university s annual Fact Book Because the Fact Book needed a polished professional appearance information had previously been transposed from SAS output into a Microsoft Publisher file The Publisher file allowed me to easily position multiple Figure 1 elements on a page and offered flexibility in design choice Creating a Page Template Unfortunately however this transposition process was a 0 0 in 8 5 in time consuming and error prone method Additionally if a 05in 525in 5 35in 7 75 in style element on a page changed each page had to be manually updated making stylistic upgrades a cumbersome process Suffice to say updating the annual Fact Book was a chore that no one in the office welcomed With the introduction of SAS ODS LAYOUT decided to take width width on the seemingly daunting task of creating the Fact Book in Sj i 24 iN e _ SAS What seemed like an insurmountable task at first quickly became a challenging but rewarding experience allowing me to use the new and evolving Output Delivery System ODS and incorporate it with powerful and flexible SAS procedures By taking a little extra time on the forefront creating the SAS program took a little longer than our normal transposition into Publisher would have taken am now looking forward to the creation of the 2011 Fact Book Instead of days of transposition can simply push the ukih of both
33. to areas of importance light red directs you to helpful tips light yellow directs you to important notes and red text provides an explanation of the accompanying SAS code When Creating Tables and Graphs Less is More have found no design authority that likes 3 D graphs and charts Keep the design simple and let the numbers tell the story Stephen Few an expert in presentation design and a speaker here at the 2011 SAS Global Forum states in his white paper Designing Effective Tables and Graphs Whenever quantitative information is presented the data itself should stand out clearly without distraction oh and just a quick note I m pretty sure he hates 3 D graphs too One additional suggestion Visit http vww perceptualedge com examples php for a really nice demonstration of how Mr Few takes charts with significant design flaws and transforms them into graphs that communicate their intended message more clearly know I took notes on how to improve many of my charts and graphs for future publications Follow your organization s style specifications Your organization will likely have suggested colors typefaces and logo specifications Ours is called the Logo User Manual Since the experts in your organization have already taken pains to find and suggest styles that match the institution s look and feel it makes good common sense to make this your style starting point You can always customize your color palette and or ad
34. ze 12pt just center fontweight bold Enrollments style fontsize 10pt and Credentials style fontsize 10pt j ods text style font_face calibri fontsize 10pt just center fontweight medium amp my_start_year amp my_year It is easy to change the font size of both the single and double asterisks to ten point within the same ODS TEXT statement The GPLOT procedure is used to create the line graph and utilize many of the style options available to me in order to achieve a consistant and appealing look ods region x 5 35 10 y 1 95 in width 2 40 in height 2 25 in goptions reset all ftext albany amt ftitle albany amt cback cornsilk symboll interpol join font marker value w SAS Global Forum 2011 Reporting and Information Visualization height 0 50 cell color firebrick width 2 pointlabel color firebrick font albany amt bold height 9pt POSIELON LoOp symbol2 interpol join font marker value u height 0 50 cell color goldenrod width 2 pointlabel color goldenrod font albany amt bold height 9pt position top legendl label none shape symbol 3 5 axisl value height 0 75 cell label none order 0 to 1200 by 200 axis2 value height 0 75 cell label none proc gplot data dept_totals plot total year enr_or_deg cframe white Vaxis axis 1 haxis ax1is2 autovref cvref gray legend legend1 run guit PROC REPORT ADORNED AND ADORED Figure 7 Proc Report Table
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