I’m a SAS user in the Pharmaceutical industry. I switched to the Pharmaceutical industry (from Marketing Research) four years ago and had a lot to learn! I started my new endeavor by purchasing some excellent SAS books, joining my local SAS user group, attending conferences (Michigan SAS User Group, PharmaSUG, SAS Global Forum), talking to SAS Press authors, and taking advantage of the wonderful SAS publications (SAS blogs, SAS Community, SAS Tech Support, and conference papers). I’m writing this blog to share some helpful hints I’ve learned from these great resources as well as tips that I’ve gathered from on-the-job mentors and my own daily experience.

Here are some PROC REPORT formatting tips:

Managing Header Levels with COLUMN and DEFINE Statements

• Headers created with the COLUMN statement are placed above headers created with the DEFINE statement. See “Gender” placement in CODE and FIGURE 1.X.1 vs. 1.X.2.
• CODE 1.X.2 shows a blank placed in quotes (define SEX / " ";) to prevent the variable name (SEX) from appearing under “Gender” (default without a DEFINE header in place).

 Creating Line Breaks in Column Headers:

• Line breaks can be created in the COLUMN and/or DEFINE statements.
• Line break syntax can come from multiple sources that produce the same results. Examples: a PROC REPORT SPLIT Character, an ODS Escape character with the wn function or RTF inline formatting.
• The line break code is inserted in the location of the desired line break.