Customer Reviews

Prima's Official Guide to Seagate Crystal Reports 7

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

I should have read a few more reviews before I purchased this book-- I recently started developing Crystal Reports from our CRM system and thought this book would help me get started quickly. I found that after about an hour it was useless and some parts concerning the web architecture were just plain wrong.

I don't understand how this title could have got so many good reviews-- Since a number of them mention the author's services, she must be using them to plug her business.

Take it from someone who would like to get a refund--leave it on the shelf.

Well, if you like to waste money, this is a good start. I haven't been this dissappointed in a book for a while. I bought it because I need to create reports from my accounting system... I found about 20 percent of the book was helpful, but even then it left out information on how to create financial statements, complex formulas, etc. Yet another reference written by someone who doesn't understand the audience. Business user, yes. Dummy? No. This one needs some work...

If you are a VB developer and trying to get information to work with the Crystal Report in your VB code. Don't waste your money. There is nothing in the book.

As to the author's comments about this book being for "business users", well I am one and this book is still weak! I hadn't touched the tool before and thought that this book would be a help, but I found it to be little use. The topics that would have been of most use to a business user, including formulas and other advanced topics were poorly organized and written. As for the information about distributing reports, the author(s) fell well short of the mark when explaining the technology demonstrating a lack of understanding... If I had to do it over again, I would definitely give this one a miss... don't make the same mistake I did.

Sometimes you make a big mistake-- purchasing this book was one of them. Even the Seagate User Manual does a better job of explaining concepts. If this is the one and only "official guide", I am sadly dissappointed. The author(s) should have spent more time understanding who uses Crystal Reports and writing the book to that market-- this is so far off of the track it's de-railed.

This book was a waste of money for a couple of reasons-- first and foremost is that it duplicated informatio that is in the User's Guide and really didn't expand on the subject matter at hand. The screen shots and diagrams are not very professional (i.e. we can see the other programs the author's had installed on their machine and what else was running at the time) and the diagrams could have been drawn by a professional artist instead of being a grainy paint drawing. The title tried to be the "official" guide but it is a let-down, amatuer attempt.

The book is basically a series of screen shots and only deals with the very basics. Not even a good section on formulas. I think it might help if you have no knowledge whatsoever...after a few days it is useless

Don't spend your money on this one. The user's manual is much better. Also, Seagate's web-site offers tons of information this book doesn't begin to touch on, including user's manual and technical manuals you can download in pdf format.

If you are looking for a developer's reference, this book is not for you. It covers what the documentation covers and barely puts a little more content then the Dummie's books on the same subject. Keep this one on the shelf.

I started a new job that required me to jump right in and learn CR7 quickly and to understand reports already created. This book does an OK job of introducing what CR is and what it can do, but it gives very few examples and the info is very shallow to take you very far.