ERROR: Format references are not allowed:

[nieminek]

Hi

I would like to highlight rows in a table output using  proc tabulate but only get this error messages  "ERROR: Format references are not allowed:"

This is how I programmed my test: 

1. at first create format for specific colors

proc format lib=work;
value temp

1=red
2=purple
3=orange
4=pink
6=yellow
other=blue;
run;

2. then apply this format in ODS/proc tabulate statement :

ods excel file=....;

proc tabulate data=_input_data order=data S=[foreground=black];
class x / style={background=temp.};
class y/ style=<parent>;
var _some_variable;

table x*y,_some_variable;

run;

ods excel close;

x-variable contains values such as 1,2,3,4

y-variable contains classification values such as '01','02',.....'05.4.3'

3. Now I'm expecting to get x and y highlighted based on the values in x

No success, only above mentioned error-message. 

[ballardw · Accepted solution]

If the values you want to highlight are the row or column headers for a CLASS variable that would go into a CLASSLEV statement.

Since the format you show is only for numeric variables I have to assume it applies to your X variable.

proc tabulate data=_input_data order=data S=[foreground=black];
class x y;
classlev x / style={background=temp.};
classlev y/ style=<parent>;
var _some_variable;

table x*y,_some_variable;

run;

But you may need to provide some data and more details of what you actually want the appearance to look like

[nieminek]

Thank you @ballardw 

This works fine and solution is easy.