st: Re: Output management

["Michael Blasnik" <michael.blasnik@verizon.net>]

First, I find it hard to believe that you think Excel graphs are somehow 
more powerful than Stata's.  You can really accomplish a lot with Stata's 
graphs and then use the resulting graph command in a do file to create many 
similar graphs very quickly.

You may want to take a look at my presentation at the 2005 NASUG on using 
Stata with Word mail merge to produce more than a 100 page appendix of 
similarly formatted pages of information that included data, estimation 
results, and three different graphs on each page, automatically laid out and 
able to be updated in seconds.  See 
http://repec.org/nasug2005/mblasniknasug.ppt.  I can give you more info 
(inlcuidng Word files) off list if you'd like.


Michael Blasnik


----- Original Message ----- 
From: <Arnold.Levinson@UCHSC.edu>
To: <statalist@hsphsun2.harvard.edu>
Sent: Friday, February 09, 2007 4:54 PM
Subject: st: Output management



> List-friends,
> We are a mixed-brand shop using Stata and SAS. (I greatly prefer Stata but 
> we hire "classically" trained folks too.) We face a challenge in 
> generating batches of reports that are visually identical but provide 
> estimates tailored to specific end-users, for example, a standardized 
> "profile" of analytic results by county. From Stata, I've done the job 
> semi-manually by transferring output to an Excel spreadsheet which is 
> programmed to generate the desired graph or chart, then cutting and 
> pasting charts/graphs into MS-Word. It's clumsy, with potential for human 
> error, and Word doesn't handle pages well when many graphic objects are 
> embedded. I haven't tried programming Stata to generate graphics directly 
> because I think it would take much programming to yield limited options 
> compared to Excel. But Excel can't analyze in the ways we need (e.g., 
> complex-sample survey data analysis).
>
> SAS sells a fancy package with a "business intelligence" analytic engine 
> and an MS-Office add-in. I haven't investigated but assume our small 
> academic group can't afford it. Can someone suggest either a better 
> Stata-based method than my cut-and-paste approach or a Stata-related 
> software solution?
> thx...Arnold
>
> Arnold H. Levinson, Ph.D.
*
*   For searches and help try:
*   http://www.stata.com/support/faqs/res/findit.html
*   http://www.stata.com/support/statalist/faq
*   http://www.ats.ucla.edu/stat/stata/