What Is a Cross-Tab?

Before getting into how to use cross-tabs in Crystal Reports, it would be beneficial to know what they actually are and when they are useful in reporting.

A cross-tab is a fully summarized set of cells in a grid format. It summarizes values both across as well as down. It is a compact representation of information that is grouped on two different axes. There can be more than one level of grouping on either axis (row or column).

A row goes across the page, whereas a column runs down the page. The intersections between the rows and columns are called cells. Cells are places where a value to be summarized will be seen. Totals in the cells are summarized for each row and column as well as the break points for the different levels of groupings.