Crystal Reports: A Beginner's Guide

I use Crystal at work and wanted a good learn it myself book.There are download examples that can be obtained by using directions in the book.If you are like me and have access to Crystal, I think you will be pleased.The book was in excellent condition and arrived promptly at a very modest price.

great price, delivery as promised, quality as advertised...

hey...this book. is very very good...try

When I began to use Crystal Reports 4 years ago, there was only one book on the market, which is Douglas Wolf's "Crystal Reports 6 for Dummies". It took me for a while to overcome the bad feeling to join the "Dummy Camp". Well, it's worth to bear the insult. To separate from the "Dummy Camp", I bought George Peck's thick book "Crystal Reports 7: The Complete Reference". To be fair, it's not the right book for learnning Crystal Reports, but a good book for reference. I kept it for more than 2 years, but only used less than 1/3 of it. When I moved to Crystal Reports' Version 8 one year ago, I bought Jill Howe's "Prima's Guide to Seagate Crystal Reports 8" for new taste. I returned it to bookstore in a week. It really disappointed me too much for lack of details. When I saw David McAmis' "Beginner's Guide", I started to wonder if the level is too low to me. Since I didn't want to have another book from Peck, I gave this book a try. It turned to be a good experience. I strongly recommend this book to anybody who is looking for his/her first Crystal Reports book, or a systematic refresher on Version 8.0 or 8.5 in short time. However, this book does have its downside: no advanced topics (for instance, working with Visual Basic or SQL Server's stored procedures), poor proof-reading, and unmatched screen-shoots. However, those are not author's fault. I made my mind to give this book 4.5 stars, but "upgraded" it as 5 - Amazon doesn't allow 4.5.

I am coming from a VBA background learning about this new software. This book is a great resource tool for making such a transition. Mr. McAmis stepped me through the learning process in a clear and concise manner. The information was learned in progressive manner, in that, the further through the book I read, the more complex issues were handled. At the end each chapter the author challenged me with key questions to help me remember the most important issues.

This book read very easily. he software comes with a sample DB that the book uses which is great. You may find certain reduncies when working on each chapters examples but its so the reader can jump to any chapter. The book is set up so you dont have to staart from the beginning. It took me a little over a month to finish reading the book simply because the software was at the job. You really need the software to make sense of it.I only wished it delved deeper into table and formulas. But its a beginners book. I recommend it hands down as a starter book

I received/ bought the book in a very good condition and in a very reasonable price. The packing was good as well.Thanks - I will buy the book from this source with confidence next time.

If you are an absolute beginner with Crystal Reports, this is the book for you. I have no experience in databases (except for Access and Excel), and I've been able to get going VERY quickly with Crystal, creating reports with graphs, totals and some formulas (although I need more practice). The book is easy to follow, but it doesn't help you with your own database-- you may find many skeletons in the closet when you try to find data within your own database... bad data, mixed up data entry, empty fields. Crystal won't fix any of those problems, but at least you can see what's in there.Its a great little book and maybe one day I will be ready for the big thick one I looked at, but not just yet!