exportToXL

From the exportToXL wiki

A screenshot of SAS and Excel after running an application of %exportToXL.

exportToXL is a SAS macro for exporting data from SAS into Excel using Dynamic Data Exchange. In keeping with the SAS notation for macros, it will be referred to hereon as %exportToXL.

Overview

There are a number of ways to export data from SAS into Microsoft Excel. However, very few allow for exporting into custom-formatted worksheets such as those demanded for specific reports, in which explicit attributes such as font sizes and column widths are required. Traditionally, Dynamic Data Exchange (DDE) was the only way to do this. Now there are newer methods for this which are considered superior, and DDE is thought to be obsolete. DDE is in fact far from obsolete, and even outperforms the newer methods in some cases that often arise in practice. %exportToXL is an accessible, flexible and modifiable macro which exports data from SAS into custom-formatted Excel using DDE. It extends the functionality of a previously published macro and addresses some criticisms of DDE in general. Using this macro requires no knowledge of DDE programming and thus brings the full power of DDE to any PC SAS user. This macro should work on all versions of PC SAS, Windows, and Excel. However, this does not currently work on any version of SAS other than PC SAS.

Specific Information

• Why DDE is (still) important for exporting SAS data into Excel.

• A table of camparisons of ExcelXP to %exportToXL.

• Installation

• Usage

• Examples

• Custom Formatting of Excel output

• Programming Details of the macro

• Making Modifications to the macro

• Ideas for Future Development

• Credits

• Help

• Teaching and Consulting

Downloads

• The exportToXL Package - including the user's guide, examples, and various other files.

• User's Guide - which contains the same information as in this wiki.