Best way to create a template/style following Stephen Few's book?

[morglum]

Hi everyone (and happy new year!),

I've just  got my hands on Stephen Few's "Show me the numbers" and would like to implement to most basics advice automatically by creating a template/style.  Has anyone already created a template that would set the layout automatically (colors, borders, font,..) ?

cheers!

[Reeza]

SAS supports CSS in many procedures so you can use that. I don't know about Stephen Few's CSS, but Edward Tufte has a CSS out that may be helpful.

https://github.com/edwardtufte/tufte-css

And SAS's documentation on CSS:

http://support.sas.com/rnd/base/ods/templateFAQ/Template_csstyle.html

I'd also be interested in a Stephen Few/Edward Tufte SAS/CSS style sheet. I find design not entirely SAS forte.

[morglum]

Thanks Reeza for the links.  I wasnt aware of it and it looks great.  I'll give it a look as it is very interesting and a good starting point, but I'm afraid learning CSS will have to wait as work is resuming soon.

[ballardw]

I recommend investigating the various SAS supplied style templates. If one is close to what you need then modifying a few elements is going to be much easier than creating one from scratch.

Create a couple of small example data sets to print and graph basic elements and then write a program that loops over the various installed styles to create a document with the same output using the various styles.

[Rick_SAS]

This is a very common topic at conferences, so there are multiple papers written about how to use PROC TEMPLATE to create a custom style.  Go to your favorite internet search engine and search for

   sas "proc template" style

If you want to restrict yourself to SAS papers and documentation, add

   site:sas.com

If you want a reference book, Kevin Smith wrote the book PROC TEMPLATE Made Easy.

[morglum · Accepted solution]

It's not perfect, but here's my template, along with examples of use with proc report and proc sgplot.

** EDIT  here's my new shade of  light grey for background shading.
%let verylightgrey = %rgb(245,245,245);

[Reeza]

Thank You!!!

That looks like a nice style. I've placed a copy on github for quick access in the future and if I update it, I'll post it there as well.

https://gist.github.com/statgeek/9845cc3d26e4c35e01a2

[morglum]

Thanks!

One thing I'm looking for is the ability to set different a color palette for small objects vs larger objects.

For example, lines would use the medium palette, while bars would use the light palette.

[morglum]

I've changed the background shading of the alternate rows.  Here's my new shade of grey.

*** very light grey est utilisé pour le background shading;
%let verylightgrey = %rgb(245,245,245);