I realized that PROC REPORT does indeed create "empty" fields when text variables are empty, so working off this idea: data new; set old; attrib new_var format=$200.; if old_var=. then new_var=''; else new_var=put(old_var,best.); run; And using PROC REPORT with: define new_var / 'Var' right display style={tagattr='format:#,##0.00'}; gets the job done - the excel cells contains real numbers the numeric field contains a value (formatted as a number) and the cells are empty if the numeric field is missing. Bjørn
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