Need help creating Spreadsheet-type report?

[Shinken]

I need to produce a report in the style of a spreadsheet for year-to-date summary data.

The columns would be counts or sums of the rows, by month, of string-type data fields(columns).

The rows must contain specific groupings of data from several different fields(columns). For example.

1. Two rows for SupType, one with =&quot;MPR&quot; and the second row being <>&quot;MPR&quot;
2. Two rows for Gender (&quot;M&quot; & &quot;F&quot
...and so forth

An example of the column & row headings on the report would be something like:

Nov2001 Dec2001 Jan2002 Feb2002 Mar2002
Gender=Male
Gender=Female
Type=MPR
Type=NonMPR
Age=Under 30
Age=31-40
Age=41-50
Age=50+
...and so forth, for a total of about rows.

The number of columns displayed/printed would be limited to 13 (12 months plus row headings) so that it will fit onto a landscape-oriented sheet of paper.

QUESTIONS:

1. Can I do this with (1) a single underlying query, or should I do (2) several small crosstab queries and then combine them into a single query, or (3) something else? Help designing the underlying query would be greatly appreciated.

2. Can anyone recommend a book that is very strong on the subject of reports other than standard line reports?

Thanks much,

Shin