Output Delivery System: The Basics and Beyond

Applying Inline Formatting

This example enhances the previous example by applying bold font to the relevant columns to call attention to the first event and the summary data line. This is done by concatenating inline formatting to each variable value. When the DATA step writes out this new value, it applies the embedded formatting instruction to the original value.

The lengths of the IMPACT and EVENT variables need to be increased to contain the several characters in the style attribute specification as well as each variable's value. A LENGTH statement before the SET statement defines new lengths for these two variables and the ITOTCHAR variable. Although the DATA step does not apply formatting to the values of EVENT, it does write the value ...