Customized ODS Output

By default, ODS output is formatted according to instructions that a PROC step or DATA step defines. However, ODS provides ways for you to customize the output. You can customize the output for an entire SAS job, or you can customize the output for a single output object.

For each ODS destination, ODS maintains either a selection list or an exclusion list of output objects. You can use the default output objects selected or excluded for each destination or you can specify which output object you want to produce by selecting or excluding them from a list.

A selection list is a list of output objects that are sent to an ODS destination. An exclusion list is a list of output objects that are excluded from an ODS destination. ODS also maintains an overall selection or exclusion list of output objects. By checking the destination-specific lists and the overall list, ODS determines what output objects to produce. These lists can be modified by using the ODS SELECT statement and the ODS EXCLUDE statement.

You can view the contents of the exclusion and selection lists by using the ODS SHOW statement. The contents information is written to the SAS log.

EXCLUDE ALL is the default setting for the ODS OUTPUT destination. SELECT ALL is the default setting for all other destinations. To change the default selection and exclusion lists, use the ODS SELECT or ODS EXCLUDE statements or use the exclude and select actions that are available for some of the ODS statements. However, to set the exclusion list for the OUTPUT destination to something other than the default, use the ODS OUTPUT Statement . For a list of ODS Output destinations and explanations of each, see Understanding ODS Destinations.

In order to view output objects that are selected or excluded from your program, use the ODS TRACE statement. The ODS TRACE statement prints the output objects that are selected and excluded and puts the information in a trace record that is written to the SAS log. The trace provides the path, the label, and other information about output objects that are selected and excluded. For complete documentation about viewing and selecting output objects, see the ODS SELECT Statement , the ODS EXCLUDE Statement, and the ODS TRACE Statement.

As each output object is produced, ODS uses the selection and exclusion lists to determine which destination or destinations the output object will be sent to. Figure Directing an Output Object to a Destination illustrates this process.

For a procedure, the name of the table template that is used for an output object comes from the procedure code. The DATA step uses a default table template unless you specify an alternative with the TEMPLATE= suboption in the ODS option in the FILE statement. For more information, see the section on the TEMPLATE= suboption in FILE Statement for ODS.

To find out which table templates a procedure or the DATA step uses for the output objects, you must look at a trace record. To produce a trace record in your SAS log, submit the following SAS statements:

ods trace on;
your-proc-or-DATA-step
ods trace off;

Remember that not all procedures use table templates. If you produce a trace record for one of these procedures, no template appears in the trace record. Conversely, some procedures use multiple table templates to produce their output. More than one template appears in the trace record produced in the log.

You can use PROC TEMPLATE to modify an entire table template. When a procedure or DATA step uses a table template, it uses the elements that are defined or referenced in its table template. In general, you cannot directly specify a table element for your procedure or DATA step to use without modifying the template itself.

You can use the global TITLE and FOOTNOTE statements to enhance the readability of any report. These statements have associated options that enable you to customize the style of the titles and footnotes when they are used with ODS. Because these options control only the presentation of the titles and footnotes, they have no effect on objects that go to the LISTING or OUTPUT destination. Examples of these style options are BOLD, COLOR=, and FONT=. For a complete list of style options, detailed information about the style options, and example code, see the TITLE statement and the FOOTNOTE statement in the SAS Statements: Reference.

When used with SAS/GRAPH, you can choose whether to render the titles and footnotes as part of the body of the document or as part of the graphics image. Where the titles and footnotes are rendered determines how you control the font, size, and color of the titles and footnotes text. For details about this ODS and SAS/GRAPH interaction, see Controlling Titles and Footnotes in SAS/GRAPH: Reference.

You can use the ODS PRINTER statement or the ODS PDF statement to generate PDF output. By default, PDF files are not password protected, so any user can view and edit the PDF files without restrictions. However, you can use SAS system options to restrict or allow users' ability to access, assemble, copy, or modify the ODS PDF files. Other SAS system options control whether the user can fill in forms and set the print resolution.

Setting the security of a PDF file involves setting an encryption level and setting PDF document properties. You use the following SAS system options to secure and configure document properties for PDF files:

The PDF system options are documented in SAS System Options: Reference.

You secure a PDF file by setting the PDFSECURITY= system option to an encryption level. Valid security levels for the PDFSECURITY= option are NONE, LOW, or HIGH. SAS sets the default PDF document properties based on the encryption level.

PDFSECURITY=NONE sets no encryption level or document property restrictions for the document. All of the PDF document properties are set to Allowed. Setting other PDF system options has no effect on PDF document properties when PDFSECURITY=NONE.

PDFSECURITY=LOW sets the encryption level to 40-bit RC4.

PDFSECURITY=HIGH sets the encryption level to 128-bit RC4.

When the PDFSECURITY= option is set to LOW or HIGH, you must specify one or more document passwords using the PDFPASSWORD= option. Passwords are required to open a secure document. An optional permissions password can be required to validate the document owner. Use the OPEN= "pw" argument to specify a password to open a document. Use the OWNER="pw" argument to specify a permissions password for the document owner.

To view the document properties for a PDF file, open the PDF file, right-click in the document, select Document Properties from the menu, and click Show Details. The Document Security window appears with the document property values.

The Yes and No values for the Document Open Password and the Permissions Password document properties indicate whether password security has been set for a document. These values are determined by the values of the PDFSECURITY= option and the PDFPASSWORD= option as shown in this table:

Nearly all other document properties can be set to Allowed or Not Allowed by using other PDF system options. The Page Extraction property cannot be set by using a system option. To see how the individual options set the document properties, see the documentation for the PDF system options in SAS System Options: Reference. To see how the Page Extraction property is set, see Page Extraction Property Values by System Option.

The following table shows the default PDF document properties for the three values of the PDFSECURITY= option:

Some document properties are set by SAS system options only when PDFSECURITY=HIGH. When you use the PDFCONTENT, PDFCOPY, PDFFILLIN, or the PDFPRINT= system options and PDFSECURITY=LOW, the resulting document properties might not be what you thought you set. For example, if PDFSECURITY=LOW and you set NOPDFCOPY, you might expect the Content Copying document property to be set to Not Allowed. The Document Security window displays the value Allowed because this was the value for the property when NOPDFCOPY was set.

The Page Extraction document property is set for different values of the PDF options, and only when PDFSECURITY=HIGH. The following table shows the Page Extraction document property values for the different PDF options and whether the document is opened by a user or by the owner: