Crystal report is a report generation tool. Generally have interface with VB6. Crystal report basically generates dynamic data. You can format the data in whichever way you feel like.

 Generally we use Crystal Reports with VB6. However we can make crystal report stand-alone application also. But for that limitation is for viewing the report user should have crystal reports installed on his/her PC.

  There are two ways of creating the report: -

1. Use crystal report built in query.
2. Use the tool ‘ Crystal SQL Designer’ provided by crystal report.

When you create report using crystal report built in query then it asks for the data source name that you have created. When you run the report, then for the first time it will ask for the user id and password. After that it will store the same.
When you create ‘.qry’ using ‘Crystal SQL’ Designer then at that time it will ask for the user id and password. When you run the report for the first time instead of asking for the user id and password it will ask for the ‘.qry’ file location. You can change the query location also. For that open the report, select ‘Set Location’ option in Database menu item, and set the location.

 For formatting any field just right click on it and you will get many options like ‘Format Field.’ ‘Browse field data’ etc. Click on ‘Format Field.’ You can align data, suppress, make it multiline, change the font size, style, and type, make it hyperlink etc.
If it is an amount field then you can display currency symbol also. Right click on the field select ‘Format Field’.

 We can very well give parameters to the report. For creating parameters select ‘Parameter Field’ in Insert menu item. ‘Create Parameter Field’ dialog box will popped up, it will ask for the name of parameter, prompting text and datatype. Now when you run the report it will prompt for these parameters.

 We can create our own formulas in reports. Select ‘Formula Field’ in Insert menu item. Write the formula in ‘Formula Editor’. Here you will get ‘Field Tree’, ‘Function Tree’, and ‘Operator Tree’, which will display the report fields, functions that are supported by crystal reports (like CDATE () etc.), operators (arithmetic, strings etc.) respectively.

 We can create report using more than one database like Oracle, Access. Create data source name for both the databases. Select tables from them and create the report.
Only restriction is if you use two databases then you cannot see the SQL generated by crystal reports.

 Generated data can be exported to word doc, or in rich text format. Just click on ‘Export’ icon in the menu. Export dialog box will be popped up. It will ask for the ‘Format’ like comma-separated value (csv) etc and the ‘Destination’ like disk, application etc. After that it will ask for the file name and save the data.
Only restriction is formatting of data will be lost, but crystal report will try to maintain as much formatting as it can.

 We can also make our own query using ‘Crystal SQL Designer’ tool provided by SQL. Here you can insert your SQL statement as such. It will save this file as ‘.qry’ . And when you create a report instead of using ‘Database’ button use ‘Crystal SQL Statement’ button.