Learning Crystal Reports Part I

The Unofficial Guide to Learning Crystal Reports® Part I:

This course is designed to introduce you to the power of Crystal Reports, and give you a solid grounding in the basics of report creation. It is designed for students that are new to Crystal Reports but that have basic Windows experience. The lessons are illustrated by exercises that use Xtreme.MDB, the sample database that comes with Crystal. The course was designed by Ken Hamady, a recognized expert in Crystal Reports. Ken is an independent trainer and consultant and is not affiliated with Business Objects or SAP AG. Most of his customers appreciate this independence. Crystal Reports is a registered trademark of Business Objects and SAP AG. This course can be taught on any version.

This book is available for download (free).

Basics:

Terminology

Using the Standard Expert to get a first draft

Working in Preview mode

Saving and printing

Working in design mode:

Understanding the 7 Sections

Using Undo

Customizing the design environment

Guidelines and snap to grid

Managing Objects:

Adding and deleting objects

Sizing objects and sections

Working with guidelines

Managing Sections:

Controlling the visibility of Sections

Hiding vs. Suppressing

Summary reports and Drill Down

Adding Page breaks

Reseting page numbers

Splitting Sections

Sorting and Grouping:

The difference between Sorting and Grouping

Adding, deleting and changing Sorts

Adding, deleting and changing Groups

The Group Name field

How fields behave in headers and footers

TopN Reports:

Uses for TopN

Sorting Groups

Selecting Top and Bottom Groups

Challenges when using TopN

Basic Group Charts:

Steps to adding a Chart

The basic settings of a Chart

Changing an existing Chart

Grand Totals, Subtotals and Summaries:

Types of Summary Operations

Steps to add a Summary

Changing a Summary

Problems with Summary fields

Cross-Tab Objects:

Uses of a Cross Tab

Adding a Cross-Tab

Changing a Cross-Tab

Multiple row/column/summary Cross-Tabs

Single dimension Cross-Tabs

Cross-Tab placement

Record Selection:

Using the Select Expert

Components of the rules

Editing the Selection Formula directly

Finding Null Values in your data

Using Group Selection

Problems with Group Selection

Creating links:

Linking overview

Table inflation

Using the Visual Linking Expert

Join Types in ODBC

Adding and removing tables manually

Formulas:

Adding a new formula

Punctuation in formulas

Operators in formulas

Editing a formula

Deleting a formula

Functions in Formulas:

Math Functions: (Round(), Sum(), Count(), Average() Minimum() Maximum()

String Functions: Right(), Val(), ToText()

Date Math and Date Functions: Year(), Month(), Day(), DayOfWeek() CurrentDate

Date Range Functions: (MonthToDate, YearToDate, etc.)

Null values in formulas: IsNull()

Other Operators:

If-Then-Else logic

Concatenation

Checking for one string within another

Substring

Value is between

Value is one of

Pasting "browsed" data into a formula

Visual Effects and Presentation:

Formatting fields by data type

Adding borders to objects

Formatting multiple fields

Formatting sections

Adding lines and boxes

Adding special fields

Large text objects:

Overview

Inserting a Text Object

Editing and formatting a Text Object

Adding fields to a Text Object