The default linesize (number of characters per line on the screen) for the Windows version of SAS (which most/all of you will likely use) is wider than what most of us would like. My pine e-mail, for example, will either cut off or wrap the long lines, depending upon how you send them, making them unreadable. This also makes it difficult for you to read your SAS output since you keep having to scroll right and left to see it, unless you have a big monitor and use a high screen resolution, e.g., 1024 x 768. To fix this, you must run all programs with a linesize set to 74. There are two ways to do this.

1. Set the linesize in each program. Include the following line as the first line in each program:

OPTIONS LINESIZE = 74;

2. If you are running the windows version of SAS, go to:

Globals (along the pull down menus at the top of the screen)

Options

Global options

Linesize--on my system it is 96. Change to 74 and be sure to hit "enter". If you don't hit "enter" it won't take. Change any other option you wish.

To exit this screen hit the X in the upper right corner of the screen--BUT BE CAREFUL TO HIT THE LOWER ONE. The upper X is for the entire SAS session, while the lower one is for the options screen.

The linesize should work for all programs until you exit and restart SAS.