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In the course of a decade, Crystal Reports has become the leading data analysis tool utilized in businesses today. No other program allows users to design presentation-quality reports from essentially any data source on the planet. Crystal Reports is simply the most powerful report-writing program available today. That may sound dramatic, but it's true.
But what are report-writing programs? Essentially, they're programs designed to grab data from a source file and then present that information in an organized and meaningful presentation. In most businesses today, the type of source that you're pulling data from is more than likely a relational database.
Since most business report writing deals with databases, this chapter focuses on how databases and database management systems work, allowing for better understanding of the different features (and possibilities) of Crystal Reports. Databases are collections of information, organized so that one can quickly select desired pieces of data.
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