CR newbie - compared to Access SQL 1

[ray436]

Hi -

Never used Crystal Reports, but I have done alot of report work in Access, writing my own queries, etc. How big of a hill am I facing to switch to Crystal Reports?

Is this going to be all hand coding or is there some sort of GUI interface?

Please excuse my ignorance, thanks for any suggested sites, or tips, etc.

Ray

 

[kenhamady]

Crystal is all GUI.

If you do any hand coding it will typically be writing formula expressions for derived columns.

You might also tweek the SQL a bit to make it more efficient, but Crystal generates the SQL for you. There are some things that you can't do in Crystal SQL, but there is a SQL designer if you need to go beyond the basic SQL that Crystal provides. For instance, Crystal doesn't do union queries unless you jump through hoops, or write it yourself in the SQL designer.

My students who are proficient in MS Access have no problem with CR. Most end users find the reporting easier in CR than Access. Ken Hamady

http://www.kenhamady.com/

Crystal Reports Training/Consulting and a
Quick Reference Guide to VB/Crystal (including ADO)

 

[ray436]

thanks for the encouragement,

I like to learn, but did not really want to get into a whole other world of hard-core programming if you know what I mean.

I have done pretty well in Access, and always manually written the queries since the "wizard" croaked after installing service pack 2.

Nothing complicated, but I could do reports involving basic arguments, and filters.

Thanks

Ray