Crystal Reports: A Beginner's Guide (ISBN 0072193263)

This book (is bad):
This book needs some serious editing Right now I'm on Chapter 4 and so far this book is terrible in regards to the Projects. The project instructions don't correspond with the results intended and shown. For example, the instructions say open the Customer by Country report, but then it says 'your report should look like this' and shows you an entirely different report! And sometimes the report you worked on doesn't even work for the task you're trying to learn. The author must have had his friends write the other customer reviews. Don't buy this book! It's just unfortunate though that there aren't many choices.

Not What I Wanted or Expected:
I'm afraid I have to agree with the review from "A reader from Cupertino, CA" - I, too, am on Chapter 4 and am frustrated beyond belief because my reports look very little like the examples in the book so far. In the case of the second tutorial in chapter 4, again the other reviewer is correct - it's not even the same report! I bought "A Beginner's Guide to JavaScript" by the same company and was thrilled with it. It was clear, concise and had a "mini-project" at the end of each chapter for the reader to complete to ensure mastery of the concept being taught. I was expecting the same thing with this book, and am sorely disappointed. The explaination of each topic is general at best, incorrect at worst, the tutorials are simplistic and don't include half the information being covered in each chapter, if indeed a tutorial exists at all. I need to get up to speed on Crystal Reports in a fairly short period of time, and be able to generate some fairly sophisticated reports. This book is becoming a hindrance to that goal.

Excellent Coverage and Design:
Crystal Reports: A Beginner's Guide covers everything and more that I wanted to learn about Crystal Reports. The information is easy to digest and there are regular 1-Minute checks along the way. Hands-on experience, in the form of Projects, are dispersed through each chapter (the completed projects can be downloaded from the web). Answers to the Mastery Checks, at the end of every chapter, are given in the Appendix. My only complaint about the book is that, I feel, there is not enough hands-on experience because the projects are too simple. There are plenty of projects, but most of them are simply a number of steps and very little critical thinking. After reading Crystal Reports: A Beginner's Guide, my knowledge of Crystal Reports has vastly increased though I still have little experience with actually creating reports.

It's ok:
It is a beginners book as the title says, but there is a pittfal, the author should consider for future books. Not every chapter has a step-by-step tutrial. The user have to download the samples and use them to be able to follow the author, which defeats the purpose of learning by doing. Chapters 4 & 5 make are mutually exlusive, since chp 5 requires reports from chp 4, that was not a step-by-step tutorial. Either make it a step-by-step or don't. Just be consistent.

Crystal Reports: A Beginner's Guide Review:
I am coming from a VBA background learning about this new software. This book is a great resource tool for making such a transition. Mr. McAmis stepped me through the learning process in a clear and concise manner. The information was learned in progressive manner, in that, the further through the book I read, the more complex issues were handled. At the end each chapter the author challenged me with key questions to help me remember the most important issues.