Equipment Used for This Book

We have made available to you various supporting material that will assist you in the completion of the exercises in this book, as well as supplemental documentation on related topics.

Web Resources

We've provided all the source code for the examples in the book, as well as the appendixes to the book, at an easy to find Web site. Just go to www.samspublishing.com. You'll find easy to download report samples and code for you to leverage in your report design and sharing efforts. Also, a great deal of additional product related information on Crystal Reports can be found at www.crystaldecisions.com.

Intended Audience

We wrote this book to appeal to beginner and intermediate level users of Crystal Reports. You'll find this book useful if you've never used Crystal Reports before or if you are looking to explore some of the new features found in version 9. You don't have to be an expert, but you should have a basic understanding of the following concepts:

• Database systems such as Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle, Sybase, and Informix

• Operating system functions in Windows NT/2000/XP

• General Internet/intranet-based concepts such as HTML, DHTML, ActiveX, and Java

The parts of this book build on each other, so skipping around isn't the best approach unless you have some familiarity with Crystal Reports 9. Even if you are familiar with Crystal Reports, many new features have been introduced in version 9, so we encourage you to read the whole book so that you don't miss anything.

Assumptions Made for This Book

For this book, we assume that you have access to a computer that has at least a Pentium II or equivalent processor, 128MB of RAM, and a Windows NT Workstation, 2000 Professional, Advanced Server, or Windows XP Professional.

All reports are based on sample data that is installed with Crystal Reports, so you will have access to the same data that we use in this book. You'll need to install Crystal Reports to get the most out of the examples included in each hour.

Conventions Used in This Book

Several conventions are used within this book to help you get more out of the text. Look for special fonts or text styles and icons that emphasize special information.

• Formula examples appear in mono, and they can be found on the Sams Publishing Web site as well.

• Objects such as fields or formulas normally appear on separate lines from the rest of the text. However, there are special situations in which some formulas or fields appear directly in the paragraph for explanation purposes. These types of objects will appear in a special font like this: Some Special Code.

• In some cases, we might refer to your computer as machine or server. This is always in reference to the physical computer on which you have installed Crystal Reports.

• You'll always be able to recognize menu selections and command sequences because they're implemented like this:

  Use the File, Open command.

• URLs for Web sites are presented like this: http://www.crystaldecisions.com.

Notes help you understand principles or provide amplifying information. In many cases, a note emphasizes some piece of critical information that you need. All of us like to know special bits of information that make our job easier, more fun, or faster to perform.

Tips help you get the job done faster and more safely. In many cases, the information found in a tip is drawn from experience rather than through experimentation or documentation.

Coffee Breaks and sidebars spend more time on a particular subject that could be considered a tangent, but will help you be a better Crystal Reports developer as a result.