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Effective graphics are indispensable for modern statistical analysis. They reveal patterns, differences,
and uncertainty that are not readily apparent in tabular output. Graphics provoke questions
that stimulate deeper investigation, and they add visual clarity and rich content to reports and presentations.
In earlier SAS releases, creating graphs with statistical procedures typically required additional
programming steps such as creating output data sets with the values to plot, modifying these data
sets with a DATA step program, and using traditional SAS/GRAPH procedures to produce the plots.
SAS 9.2 eliminates the need for additional programming by providing new functionality, referred
to as ODS Statistical Graphics (or ODS Graphics for short). ODS Graphics is an extension of ODS
(the Output Delivery System). ODS manages procedure output and lets you display it in a variety
of destinations, such as HTML and RTF. With ODS Graphics, statistical procedures now produce
graphs as automatically as they produce tables, and graphs are now integrated with tables in the ODS
output. ODS Graphics is available in procedures in SAS/STAT, Base SAS, SAS/ETS, SAS/QC,
SAS/GRAPH, and other products (see the section “Procedures That Support ODS Graphics” on
page 528). Note that SAS/GRAPH software is required for ODS Graphics functionality.
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