| SAS Companion for UNIX Environments |
When you print text or graphics, SAS needs to know where the
output should go, how it should be written, and how the output should look.
You can control text printing in two ways:
-
using forms. The default printer--as well as other aspects of your output
such as printer margins, printer control language, and font control information--are
controlled by the FORM subsystem. Forms produce output in ASCII format. Forms
are especially useful when you use the PRINT command from the windowing environment
and when you print from SAS/AF and SAS/FSP windows. Using forms is the default
printing method.
To use forms, you must first define forms for the printers
that you want to use, and then when you want to produce output, select the
form that you want to use. Defining Forms
describes how to define forms.
Note: To print with forms, host printing must be turned
off. See Turning Host Printing On and Off
for more information. ![[cautionend]](../common/images/cautend.gif)
-
using host printing. Host printing
produces output in Postscript
or PCL format. Host printing allows you to send the output of your SAS application
or the contents of the active window to either a file or to a compatible printer
in Postscript, PCL4, or PCL5 format. Through the host printing dialog boxes,
you can print or preview the contents of the active window. With the FILENAME
statement, you can associate a fileref with the XPRINTER device type and use
that fileref in statements, commands, and fields that accept filerefs to send
window contents or program output to a file or printer.
Note: Host printing is not supported on MIPS ABI and Intel
ABI.
To use host printing,
you must first define printer devices and, when you want to produce output,
select the printer device to which you want to send the output. When you define
a print device, you specify the device type (such as a Postscript file or
an HP Laser printer), the command required to send output to the device, and
options such as fonts and margins. Setting Up Host Printing describes how to define printer devices.
If you are printing
graphics, the output is controlled by
drivers. You can print graphics using one of two types of drivers:
- native SAS/GRAPH drivers
- host printing
drivers.
Refer to the online help for SAS/GRAPH for more information
about native SAS/GRAPH drivers.
Copyright 1999 by SAS Institute Inc., Cary, NC, USA. All rights reserved.
