Product Description

This best-seller has been fully updated for Crystal Reports XI (extreme insight) -- the first jointly developed release of this leading report writing and analysis software since the acquisition of Crystal Decisions by Business Objects. Readers will learn to create visually appealing reports that communicate content effectively using helpful features such as charts, complex formulas, custom functions, sorting and grouping, Business Views, and more. Publishing and viewing reports on the Web is also explained in detail. NEW coverage includes: All the new user interface elements; New Dynamic/Cascading Parameter Fields; and, Using Crystal Reports with Business Objects Enterprise XI.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #19230 in Books
• Published on: 2005-10-19
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 1002 pages

From the Back Cover

• Design, manage, and deliver enterprise database reports
• Publish dynamic reports on the Web using Crystal Reports Server
• Integrate with Visual Studio .NET and Visual Basic

THE MOST COMPREHENSIVE GUIDE TO CRYSTAL REPORTS XI

Create and publish visually effective, high-fidelity reports with help from this one-stop resource. Now you can produce and share professional-quality documents by maximizing the many useful features of Crystal Reports XI, including dynamic and cascading prompts, custom functions, cross-tab objects, the repository, enhanced Business Views, and much more. You can even create reports based on Microsoft Exchange Server, ACT! contact manager, Microsoft Outlook, or Web server activity logs. This must-have desktop companion to the most popular enterprise reporting tool on the market will help you access data, format it, and deliver it as dynamic business information.

• Design and publish high-quality reports that effectively communicate content
• Share formulas with other report users by taking advantage of reusable custom functions
• Store report objects in the repository for company-wide accessibility
• Build reports based on a variety of unique sources including XML data, Windows Server and XP event logs, and Microsoft Exchange databases
• Simplify complex database structures using Business Views
• Export reports in different file formats for use with Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, Acrobat Reader, and HTML
• Use simple and complex formulas including case statements, variables, and other advanced formula techniques
• Publish and schedule reports on the Web with the new Crystal Reports Server
• Integrate reports into custom Web and Windows applications using Visual Basic and Visual Studio .NET.

About the Author
After more than ten years as an internal consultant and trainer in a large corporation, George Peck founded his own consulting and training firm, The Ablaze Group, in 1994 (www.AblazeGroup.com). He has trained, consulted, and developed custom software for large and small organizations throughout the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Puerto Rico.

George works as both a trainer and consultant exclusively with Crystal Reports, Crystal Enterprise, and Crystal Reports Server/BusinessObjects Enterprise. This is his sixth title in the Crystal Reports: The Complete Reference series, best-sellers published by McGraw-Hill/Osborne. He is also the author of Crystal Reports Professional Results, also published by McGraw-Hill/ Osborne.

Prior to his computer career, George was a broadcaster. His voice may still be heard on various national radio and TV commercial and promotional campaigns.

Customer Reviews

Review of order
Although I have not had occasion to use this book much since its arrival, it is chock full of information and seems like the ideal reference book for Crystal users. I have just upgraded my Crystal software from version 9 to version 11 where I needed to see differences between the products. This book will be an ideal reference for me in future development of reports.

Book, good. Crystal Reports, bad.
I had Crystal Reports more than probably anything on the planet. I am biased towards web reporting in that it is where I have to spend my time. Crystal Reports itself may be fantastic in other formats, but for the web reporting, it is horrible.

That said, it also has some pretty poor documentation and support, so that means books like this are essential.

So the book itself is fantastic and you shouldn't be using Crystal Reports without it.

Note that there are many areas not covered by the book in the web reporting wold, and so you will still need to do many Google searches to figure out what is going on, and in the end many times the issue is that Crystal Reports is just buggy.
Occasionally they will patch something, and then it will be less buggy, but then things that previously worked will not, and this book will not (and really can't) account for those changes - so even with this book, you will need other reference resources as well.

Lots of information, but not as helpful as it should be
This book does have a lot of information. However, of course it's not 100% complete, if that means answering every question anyone will have.

There is a lot of information in this book. However, time and time again I find it not answering my questions. It needs a lot more "fill in the gaps" information about how Crystal Reports works, and the context for what is going on. The author needs to step back in many cases and consider what questions a newbie might have about the topic being discussed.