probably need to use something other than proc export, as the formatting of what arrives in excel, is controlled by excel. To control how excel formats a cell, (and there are a lot of controls .. see http://support.sas.com/rnd/base/ods/odsmarkup/excelxp_help.html ) you need something like ODS TAGSETS.EXCELXP. There are links to lots of examples in http://support.sas.com/rnd/base/ods/odsmarkup and a whole ODS and reporting discussion forum to search for ( EXCElxp and column_WIDTH ) at http://support.sas.com/forums/forum.jspa?forumID=6 . good luck peterC ... View more