Buy this one second
I am a rookie Crystal Reports user and I wanted to come up to speed quickly and do some nice looking reports. This book should probably have been my second Crystal Reports reference. It assumes that you already know all of the basics and probably have a library of reports you want to add slick things to. The book does have a lot a great tips and techniques and great online samples to download, and I did learn a lot reading it, but my first book should have been a step-by-step guide to building the basic reports.
Excellent Source For Immediate Results
George Peck's "Crystal Reports Professional Results" is an excellent shortcut for all levels of Crystal Reports users. The book is well organized. It has an excellent table of contents that allows the reader to focus on information for a task in progress. The instructions are well written and easy to follow, and examples are available for download from the web so the reader can work along with the instructions and see immediate results. While it is not a comprehensive text, it provides great tips that will make reports look professional quickly and easily.
Not as helpful as I hoped.
The book seemed to be geared towards Crystal 9 and not Crystal XI. I had purchased XI at the same time. The book was not a large book and half of it contained an extensive glossary of terms. Very unneccessary as this information is found in many places.
Thanks
Bonnie
Good tips - but lots of repetition
The author of this book is also the author of the various editions of the standard 'Crystal Reports: The Complete Guide' book. This book tries to pick up where that book left off--in other words, this book tries to be a resource for intermediate to advanced users.
The book does present numerous interesting tips and a few really useful strategies for report development. However, the examples are not particularly thorough and there simply are not enough of them to really cover the breadth of the product. If used as an "idea-generator" book for a mid-level developer it would be useful, but it is not a comprehensive guide to advanced techniques.
As other reviewers have already mentioned, about half of the book is just reprinted information from the electronic help files that are included with Crystal Reports. Of course having them nicely organized and bound in printed form is very useful--but the book is pretty pricey for a simple reference manual.
I read and enjoyed the book, I learned a few things and it gave me some ideas, but in general it was a bit dissappointing. If work's buying it for you--great! If it's your own money--well, you might wish you hadn't spent it.
Very valuable
Like vitamins - read one a day for better reports. Glad I bought this book.
(9 reviews)
