SAS 9.4 Language Reference, 3rd Edition

Universal Printing

What Is Universal Printing?

Universal Printing is a system that provides both interactive and batch printing

capabilities to create variety of document and graphic output formats. For example, you

can use Universal Printing to create HTML, PDF, documents, and PNG, GIF, and SVG

graphics. For a complete list of supported document and graphic types, see Table 15.1 on

page 220.

Universal Printing enables you to define printers and print previewers, and to set options

to control the printed output. In addition to creating the various document and graphic

output types, you can send output to a printer.

Windows Specifics

By default, the Windows operating environment uses Windows printing and not

Universal Printing. For more information about using Universal Printing under

Windows, see “Setting Up the Universal Printing Interface and the Default Printing

Environment” on page 219.

SAS routes all printing through Universal Printing services. All Universal Printing

features are controlled by system options, thereby enabling you to control many print

features, even in batch mode. For more information about these system options, see

“System Options That Control Universal Printing” on page 254.

Note: Before the introduction of Universal Printing, SAS supported a utility for print

jobs known as Forms. Forms printing is still available if you select File ð Print

Setup from the menu in the windowing environment. Then check the Use Forms

check box. This turns off Universal Printing menus and functionality. For more

information, see “Forms Printing” on page 262.

Setting Up the Universal Printing Interface and the Default Printing

Environment

Universal Printing in UNIX and z/OS

Universal Printing is enabled when SAS starts in the UNIX and z/OS operating

environments. No further action is required.

Universal Printing in Windows

Under Windows, Windows printing is enabled when SAS starts. To use Universal

Printing in Windows, you must set the UNIVERSALPRINT system option to enable the

Universal Printing environment, menus, and dialog boxes, and to set up the printing

defaults. If you use the SAS windowing environment, you can also use the

UPRINTMENUSWITCH system option to enable the print commands on the File menu.

These options can be set only in a SAS configuration file or at start-up. You cannot

enable or disable Universal Printing menus and dialog boxes after SAS starts.

Include the following system options when you start SAS:

-uprint -uprintmenuswitch

UPRINT is an alias for the UNIVERSALPRINT system option.

Universal Printing 219

If you start SAS with only the UPRINT option, you need to close the HTML destination,

which is open by default. Use the PRINTERPATH= option to specify the output format

type. Then, use an ODS PRINTER statement and ODS PRINTER CLOSE statement

around the code that you want to execute. Here is an example:

ods html close;

options printerpath=pdf;

ods printer;

proc print data=sashelp.class;

run;

ods printer close;

Return to the Default Printer

When you use the PRINTERPATH= system option to specify a printer, the print job is

controlled by Universal Printing. To return to the default Universal Printer (the

PostScript printer) set the PRINTERPATH= option to a null value (double quotation

marks with no space between them):

options printerpath="";

In Windows, when Universal Printing is not enabled, setting PRINTERPATH= to a null

value returns printing to Windows printing.

Universal Printing Output Formats

In addition to sending print jobs to a printer, you can also direct output to external files

that are widely recognized by different types of printers and software programs. You can

use Universal Printing to produce the following commonly recognized file types.

Table 15.1 Available Print Output Formats

Type Full Name Description

GIF Graphics

Interchange

Format

An image format designed for the online transmission and

interchange of graphic data. The format is widely used to

display images on the World Wide Web because of its smaller

size and portability.

EMF Enhanced

Metafile Format

A metafile format that is a collection of graphic drawing

commands, configuration properties, and graphic objects to

create true color, scalable, device-independent graphics.

Applications that support EMF run on Windows. Universal

Printing currently supports EMF, EMFPlus, and EMFDual

levels of the metafile format. The EMF Universal Printer uses

the EMFPlus level of metafile formatting, which is the default

EMF printer.

PCL Printer Control

Language

Developed by Hewlett-Packard as a language that applications

use to control a wide range of printer features across a number

of printing devices. Universal Printing currently supports

PCL4, PCL5, PCL5e, and PCL5c levels of the language.

220 Chapter 15 • Printing with SAS