Use PROC EXPORT to Write SAS Data to External Files and Excel Workbooks - Exchanging Data Between SAS and Microsoft Excel - page 22

DBMS
Identifier

SAS/ACCESS
Interface to PC Files
Required

General Description of the DBMS Output File

XLS Y Excel workbook using file formats prior to Excel 2007

except Excel 4 and Excel 5

XLSX Y Excel workbook using file formats 2007, 2010, and 2013

NOTE: The DBMS identifiers listed in Figure 2.2 are relative to the file formats that Microsoft Excel can
read or write. The SAS documentation lists other DBMS identifiers that PROC EXPORT can write. See the
SAS documentation for your version of SAS for other options to write file formats. Different versions of
SAS may not be able to write to all of the versions of Excel listed in Figure 2.2.

Figure 2.2: DBMS Output Methods of Accessing Excel Files.

DBMS
Identifier

Method of
Accessing
Excel Files

Excel
Version

Comments

EXCEL LIBNAME

statement

5, 95, 97,
2000, 2002,
2003, 2007,
2010, 2013

This DBMS option will use the LIBNAME
statement. Access is limited to the first 255
columns. Some older versions may be limited to
65,535 rows.

EXCELCS SAS PC Files

Server

5, 95, 97,
2000, 2002,
2003, 2007,
2010, 2013

This DBMS option will use the SAS PC Files
Server. Access is limited to the first 255 columns.
Some older versions may be limited to 65,535
rows.

EXCEL4 or
EXCEL5

DBLOAD
procedure

4, 5, 95 This is supported only on Microsoft Windows

operating systems and is for SAS 6 compatibility.

XLS XLS format 97, 2000,

2002, 2003

Chinese, Japanese, or Korean DBCS character
sets may not be supported in all versions of SAS.

XLSX XLSX format 2007, 2010,

and later
formats

This does not support the Chinese, Japanese, or
Korean DBCS character sets, which may not be
supported in all versions of SAS or *.xlsb Excel
files.

2.5 Overview of the Examples
The examples in this chapter will cover several but not all of the DBMS options used with PROC
EXPORT. I like to group the output processing for PROC EXPORT into general categories within the
DBMS options. Furthermore, I feel I must place a caveat onto these groupings because both SAS and
Microsoft Excel are mature products that have changed over time. While these categories are generally
accurate, your SAS version, Excel version, and computer hardware may not support every DBMS option,
and each DBMS option might operate slightly differently depending upon what software you have
installed. So, make sure you verify what is available to you by looking in the SAS manual that relates to
your environment.

An example retained for backward compatibility with files in the Excel 4 and Excel 5 formats.

●

Text file output options like CSV, TAB and DLM do not require SAS/ACCESS Interface to PC
Files because the methods write out text files.

●

Options that use PROC DBLOAD to output the data.

●

Options that write directly to a formatted Excel file.

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