Hello drpereyra:

OUTDD is a compiler directive.  You would specify OUTDD when compiling a COBOL program.  It would change the behavior of the program.  When OUTDD is specified, all format 1 DISPLAY statements which either have no UPON option or specify UPON SYSOUT, and all EXHIBIT statements and the output from TRACE are transformed into WRITE statements, writing to a file with the specified external filename.

You cannot use OUTDD to change the behavior of mfsort, because mfsort is not a COBOL program that you can compile.  If you cannot compile, there is no chance to specify the OUTDD compiler directive.

The output file of an mfsort (from the GIVE <output-file>) is by default a file on disk named SYSOUT.  You can control this by specifying the SYSOUT environment variable.

Example:

SYSOUT=mfsort_output_18102016

export SYSOUT

mfsort <parameters>

The output from the mfsort will be written to a file on disk named "mfsort_output_18102016".

thank you very much, it is the method I am using.