topic Re: Stat Procs creating .PNGs everywhere in SAS Programming

Stat Procs creating .PNGs everywhere

PruCelt68 — Wed, 19 Nov 2025 22:00:48 GMT

When I run SAS stat procedures (logistic, mixed, etc.) it saves a .PNG in one of the last folders I was in. I get many of these files saved all over the place in my folders. I want them to stop saving everywhere, but they seem to be like gremlins, taking over my computer.

Re: Stat Procs creating .PNGs everywhere

PaigeMiller — Wed, 19 Nov 2025 22:04:50 GMT

I think Gremlins would be offended!

Just turn ODS GRAPHICS off at the start of your program if you don't want the graphics.

ods graphics off;

Re: Stat Procs creating .PNGs everywhere

Tom — Thu, 20 Nov 2025 03:54:52 GMT

Or if you do want them make sure to say WHERE you want them.

https://documentation.sas.com/doc/en/statug/15.2/statug_odsgraph_sect041.htm

Re: Stat Procs creating .PNGs everywhere

Ksharp — Thu, 20 Nov 2025 08:13:51 GMT

If you don't need these output, you could just close them of all.

ods _all_ close;

If you need to display some output, use ODS SELECT.

https://blogs.sas.com/content/iml/2018/11/19/select-ods-tables-wildcards-regular-expressions-sas.html

https://blogs.sas.com/content/iml/2023/06/19/ods-template-render.html

Re: Stat Procs creating .PNGs everywhere

PruCelt68 — Thu, 20 Nov 2025 16:35:59 GMT

@PaigeMiller wrote:
I think Gremlins would be offended!

Just turn ODS GRAPHICS off at the start of your program if you don't want the graphics.
ods graphics off;

I wouldn't want them all off, I just want the ones which are being created automatically, without me wanting them or not, to stop showing up in my various permanent folders.

Re: Stat Procs creating .PNGs everywhere

ChrisHemedinger — Thu, 20 Nov 2025 20:20:20 GMT

And just to chime in with another option, you can use ODS HTML5 and SVG to embed the scalable graphics in your HTML output (if that's what you're using), and skip creating external graphics files.

ods html5 options(svg_mode="inline");
ods graphics /outputfmt=svg;