SAS/GRAPH Software: Reference

About the Size of Graphs and Text in GIF Images

When a SAS/GRAPH program generates a GIF image, many factors in your operating environment can influence the size of the graphs and text in that image. This usually isn't an issue for you. However, if you run a SAS/GRAPH program in your local SAS session, and then run that same program from a Web server, the GIF images generated by the two program runs might use different sizes for the graphs and text. A program that is run from your local SAS session is likely to generate smaller graphs with larger text than what is generated from the very same program that is run from the Web server. The explanation for this can be quite complicated, but the way to prevent it from happening is simple.

To ensure that the size of graphs and text is consistent in the GIF images generated by a SAS/GRAPH program, regardless of where and how that program is run, do either of the following:

specify the NOCHARACTERS option on a GOPTIONS statement, as in
```
goptions nocharacters;
```
set CHARACTERS=N in the device entry for the specified device driver (GIF, HTML, or WEBFRAME).

Use one of these techniques only for SAS/GRAPH programs that are run in different circumstances (for example, locally and from a Web server), and only if you want the sizing to be consistent across all runs. For example, you would want the sizing to be consistent if you were designing the graph in your local SAS session, and then you intended to copy your SAS program to a Web server so that it could be run from that server.

Specifying the NOCHARACTERS graphics option or setting CHARACTERS=N in the device entry does not explicitly specify sizing information, it simply determines that hardware fonts are not used for rendering the graphs and text. You should therefore specify in your SAS/GRAPH code any sizing information you want.

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