At 17:45 04/03/99 -0500, RHOADSM1 wrote:

> Getting more flexible output from SAS is the objective of the Version 7 >Output Delivery System. RTF is one of the output formats that the SI >development folks are very interested in. Version 7 actually contains early >experimental ODS drivers for RTF and several other formats, in addition to the >more-developed HTML driver (see the SI web site at >http://www.sas.com/rnd/base/topics/expv7/index.html). > Several members of the SI development team that is working on ODS will be at >next month's SUGI conference, and I'm sure they would be interested in getting >user input. Personally, RTF is high on my list of drivers that I'd like to see >move into "production" status quickly.

Mike - indeed, but as John I and I have pointed out, it not simply a question of having an RTF (or whatever) driver - everything really depends upon what it does. Merely converting 'on-screen rubbish' into 'transportable RTF rubbish' (which seems to be essentially what the present 'Save As' RTF option does, is hardly useful!

Most of us waould love to have better ouput handling/options, and the ODS seems to be a step in the direction of SI's recognition of that - but whether the ODS RTF drivers you mention would actually achieve what most of us would like is a very different question.

Currently, the proportion of my time on a project which is directly involved in the 'cosmetics' of getting SAS output into an acceptable format in a 'high quality report' is quite ridiculous.

Kind Regards,

John

---------------------------------------------------------------- Dr John Whittington, Voice: +44 (0) 1296 730225 Mediscience Services Fax: +44 (0) 1296 738893 Twyford Manor, Twyford, E-mail: medisci@powernet.com Buckingham MK18 4EL, UK mediscience@compuserve.com ----------------------------------------------------------------