Product Description

This book replaces ISBN 097739123X. If you have been looking for a beginners book that has a lot of easy to understand step-by-step instructions and screen shots that show you how to complete and master Crystal Reports XI design techniques correctly, this is the book for you. The No Stress Tech Guide To Crystal Reports XI For Beginners book (2nd Edition) , is a self-paced visual guide to learning Crystal Reports. It is written from the perspective that the reader has not created a report before or has not used Crystal Reports. This book is for the beginner and intermediate user. To help you become familiar with the options and features, this book contains over 600 illustrations that provide a visual tour of the software. If you have used a previous version of Crystal Reports and just want to learn about the new features in Crystal Reports XI or Crystal Reports 2008, see ISBN 9781935208013.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #261991 in Books
• Published on: 2008-06-24
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 448 pages

About the Author
Dr. Indera Murphy is an author, educator and IT professional that has over 18 years of experience in the Information Technology field. She has held a variety of positions including, programmer, consultant, technical writer, web designer, course developer and project leader. Indera has designed and developed software applications and web sites, as well as, manage IT Projects for numerous departments including marketing, legal, business operations, security and clinical trial studies. Indera has worked in a variety of industries including, telecommunications, entertainment, non-profit, pharmaceutical and a consulting firm. In addition to being an Executive Director and consultant, Indera is also an online adjunct professor. She teaches courses in a variety of areas including technical writing, information processing, Access, HTML, Windows, Project Management, Dreamweaver and Critical Thinking.

Customer Reviews

Good beginner bood
Good book for somebody who has never seen Crystal Reports before. Has some nice turorials and exercises to demonstrate functionality. Also includes data that would be usefull for completing a certification. Would be a good textbook for a high school or college course.

An excellent investment
This book is particularly good for people who've worked a lot in Microsoft Access and who are just making the move to Crystal Reports because the author is extremely familiar with both applications. I've since added a second Crystal reference to my library, but this book's a great place to start as you're learning Crystal syntax and how Crystal 'thinks'.

A little less than adequate and a little more than annoying
While admitting that this book does have some utility, I would be quick to add that it seems to have been crafted with little thought for the end user. The primary problem concerns the examples. Im all for learning by doing, but the methods used here create more headaches and hassle than a solid understanding of the program features. Essentially the reader is asked to create two or three files at the beginning of the book. Easy enough. Unfortunately the rest of the book consists of the reader making subtle changes to the file(s) again and again only to rename the file something else for each exercise. Can you imagine the number of files in the folder by the end of the book.(and all with a file that looks essentially the same). This gets to be a big headache when your asked to go back and find the old file from a few lessons earlier for the next exercise your planning to work on. This can be especially annoying if your like me and want to skip around and find program features that you might need. Also... Either way you use the book (straight through or hopping around), the examples seem too focused on the same type of tasks and the almost endless formatting changes available in the program. I would have appreciated more substance and less formatting fluff. While working through the exercises, I think I actually spent more time finding the correct file for the exercise compared to actually going through the steps to complete the exercise.

One tip. If you buy this book. Do yourself a favor and use their naming conventions to the letter. Otherwise you'll find yourself spending excess time searching for files you previously created for the next exercise.