Date:         Tue, 27 Apr 2004 11:02:54 -0500
Reply-To:     Paul Thompson <paul@WUBIOS.WUSTL.EDU>
Sender:       "SAS(r) Discussion" <SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
From:         Paul Thompson <paul@WUBIOS.WUSTL.EDU>
Organization: Washington University in St. Louis
Subject:      Re: form letters in SAS
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed

Alan Estes wrote:
> We're trying to create a production-level form letter.  The data
> originate from a SAS dataset.  Is there an easy way to generate the
> letter with SAS?
>
> Maybe I'm just lazy, but presently, I write the variable data into an
> Excel spreadsheet and have a Word template that conducts a mail merge
> using the data from the spreadsheet...it's a fairly manual process.
> I'd rather have this entire process encapsulated within SAS if
> possible.  We have about 80 letters per day to customize and print.
>
> Things I've tried:
>
> 1.  PROC FSLETTER....don't license that module.
>
> 2.  DDE to MS Word....can't get a record's worth of data to print the
> letter out, then move to the next record and print that letter out,
> etc, etc.
>
> Any assistance would be much appreciated.
>
> Thanks,
> --Alan Estes
>
>   aestes@K2Financial.com
>   K2 Financial, LLC

SAS does not do nicely formatted stuff.  However, LaTeX does.  In fact,
I am the author of newlfm, a LaTeX letter production class.  In newlfm,
I handle form letters with great ease and flexibility.  You can
customize them with unlimited flexibility.

I have FREQUENTLY taken SAS stuff and produced reports using LaTeX as
the report-writing engine.  Letters would work the same.

1) Use SAS to produce the addresses, differential content, whatever.

2) Write them to a file using PUT statements in SAS

3) "Shell out" using "x" commands to produce .pdf files from LaTeX.

4) Print or route your .pdf files to your destination.

If you are interested, I will send you a copy of newlfm.  It is freeware.

There is, however, a learning cur