Books On Crystal Reports

[Guest]

I know this is kind of an odd question, but I don't know where else to post
this.

My company standardizes its reporting using Crystal Reports. I have never
used it before, but I am very conversant with the MS Access reports engine.
I'm told they're similar, and that Crystal even has an automation language
similar to VBA.

Can anyone recommend a book on Crystal Reports, ideally one with a focus in
programming/automation?

We're using CR8, and will be upgrading to CR10 later this year.

Thanks.

 

[Rob Parker]

I recently did a bit of work using CR to generate some reports from an SQL
Server database, and went searching for a reference book to use. The best I
found was "Crystal reports XI. The Complete reference", by George Peck. It
includes sections covering "CR on the Web", and "Custom Web and Windows
Reporting Applications", the latter has chapters covering CR with ASP and
Visual Basic, and with Visual Studio .NET. I didn't look for anything for
previous versions of CR, however.

The Help system in CR XI also seems very comprehensive. However, I can't
comment on previous versions.

There are forums for CR on the Business Objects website; try
http://support.businessobjects.com/forums/default.asp My personal
experience with a couple of them is that there are many more questions than
answers :-( They are certainly nowhere near as responsive as the MS
newsgroups! You might get some better recommendations for reference books
there.

One last thing: why are you only upgrading to CR 10? The latest version is
CR XI.

HTH,

Rob

 

[me]

My company standardizes its reporting using Crystal Reports.

If I learn to use Crystal Reports...... does that mean
I can use ANY database I wish and pull data from it?

IOW... is my time better spent leaning CR than say
Access or SQL, etc?

 

[Larry Linson]

If I learn to use Crystal Reports...... does that mean
I can use ANY database I wish and pull data from it?

IOW... is my time better spent leaning CR than say
Access or SQL, etc?

If all you ever want to do is to pull Reports, then Crystal can work against
many database formats.

On the other hand, if you are going to be developing databases in Access,
which has its own very capable reporting features, it would be folly to do
your Access reporting in Crystal.

Microsoft SQL Server has an outstanding feature called Reporting Services,
and those who use it are very impressed -- again, if what you are doing is
working in MS SQL Server, it would be folly to do your SQL Server Reports in
Crystal.

However, in the past, I had a colleague who worked for months for one client
doing nothing but Crystal reports -- that client had several different kinds
of database.

Larry Linson
Microsoft Access MVP