Date: Wed, 22 Oct 2008 15:46:17 -0700
Reply-To: cyew07@YAHOO.CO.UK
Sender: "SAS(r) Discussion" <SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
From: cyew07@YAHOO.CO.UK
Organization: http://groups.google.com
Subject: Re: The Future of RTF for Clinical Reporting
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252
On 22 Oct, 19:29, mlhow...@avalon.net (Mary) wrote:
> I agree with Chen and not with Roland here.
>
> I know a lot about MS Word, having supported it campus-wide for three =
> years at the University Help Desk, including supporting all the thesis =
> students. I've also taught Word 2003 and 2007 at the community college =
> for the past three years.=20
>
> I also know a lot about RTF. I work for one of the largest hospitals in =
> the United States, and when I was in IT I actually *programmed* the =
> creation of rtf documents from a data input screen. Our hospital has =
> millions of documents, and they are stored in rtf, many of which were =
> transferred out of .doc format and into rtf, and many others which were =
> not created in word, but were created in our medical record application =
> and then converted via programming code to rtf. =20
>
> The main reason for moving from .doc format to .rtf format was that .rtf =
> format is plain text, and thus can be edited, however painfully, if =
> necessary. We were creating them on PC's and storing them on an IBM =
> mainframe, so there was the concern of moving non-plain text from ASCII =
> to EBCDIC that was the primary motivator. =20
>
> In terms of Word itself, it is most comfortable with .rtf documents. =
> The newer versions of Word can do sub-documents and master documents so =
> this would be very advantageous to people producing reports in that a =
> sub-document could be generated out of SAS and could automatically be =
> part of the Word document without having to "import" the result at all.=20
>
> Thus, I do see .rtf as the standard in Word processing (and we did see =
> .rtf readers being able to work within products like PowerBuilder). =
> Yes, Word has proprietary .rtf, but most standard .rtf can be read into =
> Word (though not always vice-versa). The introduction of HTML into Word =
> is a more recent introduction, and HTML does not have anywhere near the =
> level of integration into Word that .rtf has.
>
> XML also has a similar standard, thus I would see both XML and RTF as =
> being standard ways to output reports that can be read into Excel or =
> Word, but I really don't see HTML as being close to the level of =
> acceptance as XML and RTF are. The ability to program fonts, colors, =
> and formatting in SAS would be the reason to use these over exporting =
> any kind of text table. =20
>
> -Mary=20
>
> ----- Original Message -----=20
> From: RolandRB=20
> To: SA...@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU=20
> Sent: Wednesday, October 22, 2008 12:23 PM
> Subject: Re: The Future of RTF for Clinical Reporting
>
> On Oct 22, 7:15 pm, cye...@yahoo.co.uk wrote:
> > On 22 Oct, 04:47, RolandRB <rolandbe...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> > =
> =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=
> =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=
> =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D
> > Hi Roland
>
> > With Regard to your responses about:
>
> > 1) ODS HTML =96 Why would you do this when RTF is native to Word. We
> > have all experienced issues when bringing
> > formats that are not native to the application.
>
> > =93ODS HTML then bring it into WORD is better than just ODS =
> RTF?=94 How
> > so
> > when RTF is as close to the WORD .doc format as you can get!!
>
> > I have not come across anybody who has gone with your route.
>
> > 2) About your comment on consistency =96 Why would think that using =
> ODS
> > do not help
> > with consistency. In fact this another point that reporting to .rtf
> > has the advantage over the .lst =96 That is you can set the Styles,
> > Margins with proc template(hence consistency).
>
> > Regards
> > Chen
>
> Hi Chen,
>
> I am talking about in-text tables here. That's the tables in the front
> part of the clinical submission. The clinical writers have free reign
> here. No matter if you say they must not, they *will* make up their
> own tables with figures picked from other tables. They will insert
> those tables. They do not use ODS -- they use Word. So their tables
> will be one of the supplied Word styles. These will be different from
> the RTF tables in some way. In order to have consistency it is better
> if these in-text tables are imported into Word as cell tables and then
> a style applied. I believe there is one large pharmaceutical company
> in Switzerland that insists ti is done that way.
>
> As for HTML importing into Word documents better than RTF then I think
> Word has changed to give a lot of support for the HTML format and that
> it has overtaken the RTF format in terms of the quality of the
> rendering. That situation might have changed.
===================================================================
Hi Mary
I agree with you 100% that XML and RTF would be the standard output
for Excel and Word.
For Word the SI has gone for RTF. In SAS v9.2 there is an RTF tagset
although I suspect this
won’t be as near perfect until another version of SAS or two. For me
the SI has chosen the correct route.
That is an XML tagset for Excel and an RTF tagset for Word. I do not
see SI invest in an XML tagset for
Word when they have already invested in the RTF tagset. The ODS RTF
have been on the seen since SAS v8.1
and the SAS users community is already using RTF, especially in
clinical reporting.
You mentioned about the sub document, this is interesting to me and I
will investigate this. I had worked
at a place where the Statistician prepare the report document way
before the tables have been created.
In his Word document he created links to the outputs and when the
tables are generated they are automatically
populated in the document. Now if people can see the advantage of
this! And why the Statisticians preferred RTF.
Regards
Chen
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