After long years SI finally has provided a very strong output tool named ODS. And you don't want to use it????? You really prefer ugly .TXT files instead? Perhaps there are people here who understand that - I don't! Do you have good reasons for that?

If you want to replace the 'fffffff...'s you might have a look at the FORMCHAR - option. Many years ago that could be used to bring tabulates and other reports with lines on non-graphical printers.

Try

options formchar="123456789";

to find out at which positions the chars you need are. Then replace them with -!+...;

Perhaps you get ist with formchar=" -"

Gerhard

On Thu, 24 Jan 2008 11:08:45 -0500, Yu Zhang <zhangyu05@GMAIL.COM> wrote:

>Hi, > >I want to save my proc report table in an external file. i am using PROC >PRINTTO to save the tables, I want the output as a pdf file. but it is not >working. PDF reader can not open it because file is damaged. >then I change the file extenstion to .TXT. this time is working, but the >line change to 'ffffffffffffffffffffffffff' instead of 'LINE'. > >I don't want to use ODS. is there any other ways I can save the table same >as it shows in the output window. I prefer a word document or pdf format. > >here is the code i am woorking on with no success. > >thank you for your help! > >Yu