topic Re: Modifying TAGSETS.RTF through PROC TEMPLATE and Inheritance in ODS and Base Reporting

Modifying TAGSETS.RTF through PROC TEMPLATE and Inheritance

FlimFlam — Wed, 15 Jun 2016 01:23:26 GMT

Hi everyone,

I'd like to modify some of the events in the RTF tagset via PROC TEMPLATE in SAS 9.4 by creating a new tagset and setting the PARENT to RTF (similar to what's outlined here: http://support.sas.com/documentation/cdl/en/odsug/61723/HTML/default/viewer.htm#a002285940.htm.)

As a first step, I decided to try creating a new tagset that fully inherits the RTF tagset (no modifications.) I used the following to do that:

PROC TEMPLATE;
     DEFINE TAGSET TAGSETS.RTF_MOD /STORE=SASUSER.TEMPLAT;
     PARENT=TAGSETS.RTF;
     END;
RUN;

The TEMPLATE code above ran without any problems, but when I attempt to use the new TAGSETS.RTF_MOD, I get strange results. Here's the code I used to try creating a new RTF using the RTF_MOD tagset:

ODS TAGSETS.RTF_MOD FILE = '[Output directory]\Testing.rtf';
ODS TEXT = 'TESTING 123';
ODS TAGSETS.RTF_MOD CLOSE;

And here's the output I got in my "Testing.rtf" file (when viewed through MS Word):

{\fonttbl

}

{\colortbl;

}

{\*\bkmkstart IDX}{\*\bkmkend IDX} }

It looks like perhaps the RTF control words are being saved as plaintext, rather than as an RTF - am I missing something in my code above? If I use the same ODS code as above, but change the destination from RTF_MOD to RTF, then the RTF file is created correctly. Not sure what I'm doing wrong....

Any insights are appreciated - thank you in advance!

Re: Modifying TAGSETS.RTF through PROC TEMPLATE and Inheritance

Cynthia_sas — Wed, 15 Jun 2016 20:13:28 GMT

Hi:
First, I would not really recommend this if you are not very comfortable with both RTF control strings and RTF command syntax and with PROC TEMPLATE.

The reason I say this is that if you have 1 single mismatched { or } the RTF file will become unreadable/unrender-able by a word processor.

So what is the modification you want to implement? Can you elaborate? Is it primarily a style change or do you actually want to modify the RTF control strings that are generated?

In fact, the example you posted is about making an HTML modification to the HTML tags. HTML in a browser is WAY, WAY more forgiving than RTF in a word processor when being rendered.

And, I'm not actually sure that just having a PARENT= statement will work for TAGSET templates. I think you have to have some events, but I'm not sure which ones.

This seems, to me, to be to be a question for Tech Support.

cynthia

Re: Modifying TAGSETS.RTF through PROC TEMPLATE and Inheritance

FlimFlam — Fri, 17 Jun 2016 01:00:35 GMT

Hi Cynthia,

Thanks for the quick reply!

After I posted this, I did a little more digging, and eventually found what I was looking for: http://support.sas.com/kb/45/138.html.

After copying that code in, I re-implemented the events that I wanted to, and now everything works like a charm!

Re: Modifying TAGSETS.RTF through PROC TEMPLATE and Inheritance

Rajaram — Fri, 17 Jun 2016 08:27:07 GMT

Hi FlimFlam

Thank you very much. I was looking for this long time. I have written to SAS Support last month still no answers. I followed link which you have added. It is working fine now :smileyhappy 🙂

Regards

Rajaram