6.6 - Output Appearance

So far, we've focused on how to alter the content and structure of our PRINT procedure's output. Now, we'll focus a bit on how to "prettify" our output using TITLE and FOOTNOTE statements and the DOUBLE option.

Example 6.16 Section

The following PRINT procedure merely prints our basic data set, but this time with helpful TITLE and FOOTNOTE statements:

OPTIONS LS = 72 PS = 20 NODATE NONUMBER;

PROC PRINT data = basic;
    title 'Our BASIC Data Set';
	footnote1 'Clinic: ALTO = altoona,  LEWN = Lewistown,  MNMC = Mount Nittany';
	footnote3 'Type_vis: 101 = Gynecology, 190 = Physical Therapy, 187 = Cardiology';
	footnote5 'Gender: 1 = female,  2 = male';
RUN;

footnote;
Our BASIC Data Set
Obs subj name clinic gender no_vis type_vis expense
1 1024 Alice Smith LEWN 1 7 101 1001.98
2 1167 Maryann White LEWN 1 2 101 2999.34
3 1168 Thomas Jones ALTO 2 10 190 3904.89
4 1201 Benedictine Arnold ALTO 2 1 190 1450.23
5 1302 Felicia Ho MNMC 1 7 190 1209.94
6 1471 John Smith MNMC 2 6 187 1763.09
7 1980 Jane Smiley MNMC 1 5 190 3567.00

Clinic ALTO = altoona, LEWN = Lewistown, MNMC = Mount Nittany

Type_vis: 101 = Gynecology, 190 = Physical Therapy, 187 = Cardiology

Gender: 1 = female, 2 = male

The TITLE and FOOTNOTE statements contained within the PRINT procedure are fairly self-explanatory. In general, though, the TITLE and FOOTNOTE statements can appear anywhere in your code, as they are global statements. As such, they each work as a "toggle" statement: once you specify a title and footnote, they are used for all of the subsequent output your program generates until you define another title and footnote or cancel them with empty TITLE and FOOTNOTE statements. The last footnote statement in the above code is an empty footnote statement that just "turns off" the previously specified footnotes.

You can have up to ten titles and ten footnotes appearing in a single SAS program, each denoted by a number: title1, title2, ..., title10 and footnote1, footnote2, ..., footnote10. The number tells SAS on which often lines you'd like the title or footnote printed. The footnotes in the above program tell SAS to print the footnotes on the first, third, and fifth footnote line. That's why there is a blank line between each of the footnotes.

Launch and run the SAS program, and review the resulting output to convince yourself that the title and footnotes are displayed as described. Note too that titles and footnotes are centered by default.

To make sure you understand the global nature of the TITLE and FOOTNOTE statements, you might want to try submitting another simple PRINT procedure:

PROC PRINT;
RUN;

to see what happens. In the output window, you should see another print-out of the basic data set having no footnotes but having the same title as the previous output.

Example 6.17 Section

If you want to make your output more readable by double-spacing it, you can use the PRINT procedure's DOUBLE option. The following SAS program prints six variables in the basic data set using double-spacing:

OPTIONS PS = 58 LS = 72;

PROC PRINT data = basic NOOBS DOUBLE;
   title 'Our BASIC Data Set';
   var subj name clinic no_vis type_vis expense;
RUN;
Our BASIC Data Set
subj name clinic no_vis type_vis expense
1024 Alice Smith LEWN 7 101 1001.98
1167 Maryann White LEWN 2 101 2999.34
1168 Thomas Jones ALTO 10 190 3904.89
1201 Benedictine Arnold ALTO 1 190 1450.23
1302 Felicia Ho MNMC 7 190 1209.94
1471 John Smith MNMC 6 187 1763.09
1980 Jane Smiley MNMC 5 190 3567.00

Launch and run the SAS program, and review the resulting output to convince yourself that the output is double-spaced as described.