Which procedure is best for creating a summary report of statistics in SAS?

Using PROC MEANS is optimal for creating a summary report of statistics in SAS because it is specifically designed to compute and display descriptive statistics, such as the mean, median, standard deviation, and various percentiles, among others. This procedure provides an efficient way to summarize data by specifying the statistics you are interested in and the grouping variables if applicable.

PROC MEANS automatically handles missing values, allows for easy customization of the output, and can produce results for specified variables across different groups in your dataset. This is advantageous when you require a concise summary of your data that includes key statistical metrics, making it highly effective for exploratory data analysis and reporting.

In contrast, other procedures serve different purposes. PROC REPORT is used for creating customizable detail reports and can include summary statistics, but it is more focused on report formatting and layout rather than solely providing statistical summaries. PROC PRINT is designed primarily to print raw data without summarization, and PROC SORT is utilized for organizing data rather than generating statistical summaries. Thus, for the specific goal of summarizing statistics, PROC MEANS is the clear choice.