Output Delivery System: The Basics and Beyond

Creating Cleaner PROC REPORT Output Using SPANROWS

Before ODS, PROC REPORT didn't have table cells with rows and borders unless you specified the BOX option. With ODS, most styles put borders on table cells. When you have GROUP or ORDER variables in your PROC REPORT, the table can end up looking messy because you can see the borders on the cells that are rendered blank by the GROUP or order statement.

For example, the following code produces a table where there are three blank cells in the "Table Type" column:

ODS HTML BODY='no_span.html' style=sasweb; proc report data=furniture nowd; column Type Material Price; define Type / group 'Table Type'; define Material / group 'Construction'; define Price / analysis mean 'Average Price' format=dollar8.; ...