topic Re: Exporting to an existing Excel sheet (to specific cells) in SAS Programming

Exporting to an existing Excel sheet (to specific cells)

JanJansen — Fri, 21 Feb 2025 11:36:47 GMT

Hello,
I have an existing Excel workbook with various sheets, all of which have integrated formatted Excel tables as templates. Is there now a way to export SAS data sets to specific cells in an Excel table?

My current knowledge:
Proc Export: No range possible

ODS Excel: ALWAYS completely overwrites existing Excel sheets.

Is there a newer solution?

Many thanks!

Jan

Re: Exporting to an existing Excel sheet (to specific cells)

quickbluefish — Fri, 21 Feb 2025 11:50:13 GMT

I don't know of any way to do this. However, why not just export the data to a separate sheet (in the same workbook) and have either Excel formulas or a VBA macro that reads from that sheet to populate the range/s of interest? Seems much less prone to disaster.

Re: Exporting to an existing Excel sheet (to specific cells)

JanJansen — Fri, 21 Feb 2025 12:25:33 GMT

I work in a larger organization and we have the requirement to convert all VBA programs to SAS 😉

Re: Exporting to an existing Excel sheet (to specific cells)

quickbluefish — Fri, 21 Feb 2025 12:45:54 GMT

Can't blame them - VBA is painful. Maybe other folks will have ideas to do specifically what you asked. It might help if you describe the structure of the target Excel sheet. Is it a dashboard of some sort? Is it reading data from other sheets in the same workbook or from an external source? Is it interactive?

Re: Exporting to an existing Excel sheet (to specific cells)

Tom — Fri, 21 Feb 2025 12:55:54 GMT

@JanJansen wrote:

I work in a larger organization and we have the requirement to convert all VBA programs to SAS 😉

Then just create the WHOLE worksheet from SAS, not just some part of it.

Re: Exporting to an existing Excel sheet (to specific cells)

JanJansen — Fri, 21 Feb 2025 13:03:41 GMT

There are some static sheets with hyperlinks and links to different workbook sheets - can SAS handle this?

I don't just need data tables, but "real" Excel tables (with table names, alternative text, etc.) - can SAS do that?

Re: Exporting to an existing Excel sheet (to specific cells)

Cynthia_sas — Fri, 21 Feb 2025 21:15:20 GMT

Hi: Can you clarify what you mean by table names and alternative text -- do you mean custom sheet names or possibly flyover text when a cell is clicked in?
Cynthia

Re: Exporting to an existing Excel sheet (to specific cells)

Ksharp — Sat, 22 Feb 2025 02:35:58 GMT

https://communities.sas.com/t5/SAS-Programming/Manipulating-excel-workbook/m-p/952647

Re: Exporting to an existing Excel sheet (to specific cells)

JanJansen — Tue, 04 Mar 2025 18:48:31 GMT

Sorry - was on vacation.

I can add a name and an alt text to a formatted excel tabelle for a barrier-free reading. This is what I need.

Re: Exporting to an existing Excel sheet (to specific cells)

JanJansen — Tue, 04 Mar 2025 18:49:39 GMT

Looks interesting, I'll try this next days. Thanks!