Tasks that you run in SAS Enterprise Guide typically create a report, which is a type of textual or graphical output that you can view, print, or save as a file. You can set the preferred output file type generated by tasks by choosing Tools --> Options --> Results General.The output file types available include

  • Plain text: No formatting available — just text.
  • PDF: The Adobe Acrobat Portable Document File format.
  • RTF (Rich Text Format): An export format used by Microsoft Word and other popular word-processing software.
  • HTML: Formatting is possible, but printing often truncates important information.
  • SAS Report: A SAS open standard report format. Formatting is possible, printing with proper formatting is possible, and your point-and-click format changes can be preserved if you rerun your project.

Although the preferred task output type is specified in Tools --> Options --> Results General, you easily can override this on a task-by-task basis. To force a task to generate different output than normal (say, if your colleague in Europe wants a PDF of the sales report), do the following:

1. In the process flow or project explorer (tree view), right-click the task for which you want to specify a special type.

2. Choose Properties.

3. From the Properties dialog box that appears, complete the following steps:

• Click the Results tab.

• Select the Override the Preferences check box.

• Check the PDF file type (or whatever type you want).

Note that you can select more than one output type; but be warned that for every output type you select, the task runs another time to generate it. For example, a task that takes one minute to create a long sales report in HTML takes about two minutes to generate the graph in both HTML and PDF formats. Obviously, it's to your advantage to request only the type of output you absolutely need.