A cross tabulation is a densely populated report or matrix (a rectangular table of elements or entries). Cross tabs resemble spread sheets, and if you are working with data that requires multiple cells that make up a grid consisting of rows and columns, a cross tab is the best tool for the job.  

The development tips in this article are primarily intended for developers without much experience with Crystal Reports.  This article assumes the reader has a basic knowledge of Crystal Reports data access.

Since cross tabs summarize data both vertically and horizontally, this provides users with a spreadsheet like interface that many users are already accustom to. Along with providing users with a known interface, cross tabs save space, allow for custom formatting of each cell, and allow for data expansion. These are features you would not normally have when using a typical grouping report.

Many times beginning Crystal Reports authors overlook the powerful feature of cross tabs; in this article we discuss the basics of creating and formatting cross tabulations in Crystal Reports 2008. We cover three major areas with cross tabs in this article: Getting data into the cross tab, formatting, and some more advanced cross tab features. The following examples are created from the SQL Server 2000 Northwinds Trading Company sample database. The sample report referenced throughout this article pulls data from the Orders, Order Details, Customer and Products tables. The report is intended to be a representation of a typical yearly product order summary. It groups products by customer, and displays the yearly total number of each product that the customer ordered. The examples below use Crystal Reports 2008, but have also been tested with Crystal Reports XI.