Special Edition Using Crystal Reports 10 [SPECIAL EDITION] (Paperback)

by Neil FitzGerald (Author), Ryan Marples (Author), Naisan Geula (Author), Bob Coates (Author), James Edkins (Author), Michael Voloshko (Author) "Organizations in the early twenty-first century find themselves increasingly awash in data yet hungering for information to help them meet their business objectives..." (more)
Key Phrases: world sales report, engine object model, database logon information, Business Objects, Crystal Management Console, Visual Basic (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
Special Edition Using Crystal Reports is a reference guide designed to provide hands-on experience with the latest release of the product suite. The latest version of the Crystal Reporting Suite, delivers vast enhancements that drive upgrades from users who'll seek a reference to help them migrate. As Crystal Decisions insiders, the authors bring unique and valuable real-world perspectives on implementations and use of the Crystal Reports product. The book includes content, tutorials, samples and real-world tips and tricks for reporting within the Microsoft Visual Studio.NET environment, the J2EE/Java environment and against a multitude of data sources including Relational Databases, OLAP Databases, EJBs, COM objects, SAP BW, etc. New content on report distribution, and integration into the secured managed reporting solution known as Crystal Enterprise 10, is also now included in this definitive user guide.

From the Publisher
This book was written to provide a full product adoption life-cycle reference to Crystal Reports Designers, Application Developers integrating Reporting functionality and Crystal Enterprise Administrators.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 888 pages
• Publisher: Que; Special edition (July 14, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0789731134
• ISBN-13: 978-0789731135
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 7.4 x 2.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #730,230 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Dittos on the Down Side, November 9, 2005

By	R. Jones (Round Rock, Tx USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

As to what others have said:
A reference - I disagree. Too much talk-talk gets in the way of finding anything quickly. Also the index is not as detailed as the text. For example I don't find an index reference to the "verify database" command but I'm sure it's mentioned in the book (somewhere!!). The Crystal reports online help is much better reference, it's more concise and organized to find specifics, the hallmark of a *reference*

Poorly Written - not.

Tedious - in the extreme.

My Spin:
The book addresses every nit and noid, thus making it difficult to find or learn things quickly. It's like trying to swim across the lake but you have to dive to the bottom constantly. And they bring up so much stuff they end up not really teaching or describing it adequately. I'm not so much learning Crystal Reports as I am being overwhelmed by exposure to every menu item and dialog in the system! It's kinda like an 800 page demo. One thing I am not getting out of this book is how to "program" in Crystal - and as an experience programmer, it's syntax is confusing.

I want to "get started quickly" - after all the basics of CR is rather basic. And later I want to "learn more in depth". And over time I want to look up things I forgot. This book just doesn't cut it.

Finally:
This book is OK if you have the time and patience and need to learn it all from scratch. It very "linear" in my view significantly adding to the tedium factor.

22 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A comprehensive Report Design and Delivery Book, August 17, 2004

By	Alex Stormov "Storm" (NJ USA) - See all my reviews

I had used Crystal Reports in a few projects previously and was tasked with using it again in a large upcoming initiave. I decided to review the current books out there to see what could best help me get back up to speed and give me a deep enough level of material that I could continuously learn from - this book is it.

The Book covered Crystal Report Design in a thorough way that let me get back up to speed quickly and the tips and tricks provided in the chapters were great in showing me how to create Crystal reports in an optimal way. The book took me through all the necessary preliminaries like data-source connections, field selection, grouping, filtering, sorting, etc and then led me to advanced features like Cross-tabs, Report Templates, Charting and Business Views (we use Crystal Enterprise too).

Unlike the other books I reviewed on the market, this one enabled me to not only create great reports using Crystal Reports but also taught me how to deliver those over the web through my custom application - a huge time saver and as mentioned provided great coverage of the other Crystal (or Business Objects) products so that I could actually construct a growth plan for my Crystal Enterprise infrastructure.

Over-all - highly recommended. AS

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Best book I found out there for a novice but poorly edited, September 1, 2005

By	Steve H "Steve H" (Arnold, MD USA) - See all my reviews

I am a beginner at Crystal Reports. I bought two other books before this one and I was left frustrated by both of them. I bought this book and within one day I was at least able create and edit reports. But this book is so poorly edited its laughable. It makes learning from this book a lot more difficult than it has to be. The book was obviously written by several different authors, some more capable than others. One chapter I am understanding everything on the first read and the next I am completely befuddled having to reread sections four or five times and finally figuring out what to do on my own. I get the sense that the book was hastily rehashed for this software version and the reader is at times left trying to make sense of instructions for earlier releases. There is hardly any sense of continutiy between the chapters and some exercises refer to prodedures that are yet to be covered. The book is rife with typos and it constantly references illustrations that are located pages away. Whats up with that? It wasn't to save paper. If the redundant paragraphs and unnecessarily wordy sentences were properly edited we could have saved a tree per book.
Que and its parent, Pearson are highly respected publishers. Its hard to believe they would release a $50 book of such poor quality. Nevertheless, the book delivered what I needed. If you are at your wit's end tryng to learn Crystal Reports consider buying this book for lack of anything more understandable.