Getting Your Pharmacy Tech Certification With Delmar's Materials
I picked up the Delmar's Pharmacy Technician textbook about ten years ago when I was studying for my PTCB exam. It's still one of the most common resources people use, and honestly, it's still decent for what it is. The question comes up regularly on forums, so here's how it actually works in practice. Delmar's doesn't give you a certification directly. That's a common misunderstanding. What Delmar's provides is a textbook and study guide designed to prepare you for the PTCB exam or the NCPT exam. The actual certification comes from passing one of those standardized tests. The book covers everything from pharmacy law to math calculations to pharmacology basics. It's structured around the task domains that the PTCB uses to build their exam, which makes it useful even if you're studying on your own without a formal program. The current edition I've been referencing is the 7th edition, published around 2021. There's also a companion lab manual if your state or program requires hands-on skill verification. Most people just need the main textbook plus a separate test prep book or online question bank.
One thing people miss is that the math section in Delmar's is solid but not exhaustive. I ran into this back when I was tutoring a kid who absolutely bombed the dosage calculation portion of his practice test. He'd read the chapter twice and still couldn't figure out why his answers were wrong. The issue wasn't the book — it was that the examples are mostly straightforward conversions and basic ratios, but the actual PTCB throws in some trickier dimensional analysis problems that the textbook glosses over. What I had him do was grab a third-party calculation workbook and drill about 100 practice problems. Not the Delmar's ones. Different ones. After that, he passed the math section on his next attempt. If you're looking for the book itself, you can find it on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or directly from Cengage since they're the parent publisher. The ISBN for the 7th edition is 978-1337688978. There are also older editions floating around for cheap on eBay or AbeBooks, and honestly, the differences between the 6th and 7th edition are mostly minor updates to pharmacy law sections. If you're not in a state that recently changed its laws, an older edition will serve you fine and save you about forty bucks. The real limitation with Delmar's is that it's a textbook, not a review course. It's thorough on the content but light on exam strategy. You won't learn test-taking tricks from it. You also won't get hundreds of practice questions the way you would from something like PTCB's own practice exam or a dedicated prep platform. I'd recommend pairing it with at least one full-length practice test before you sit for the real thing. Walking in cold with just the textbook as your prep is cutting it close.
Another nuance that isn't obvious: Delmar's covers federal law pretty well, but state-specific law varies wildly. If you're in California or Texas or New York, you'll need supplemental material for your state's pharmacy board requirements. The textbook mentions that these exist but doesn't go into detail. Check your state's board of pharmacy website before you buy anything else. Some states require additional coursework or background checks that Delmar's won't address at all. As for downloading anything — there's no legal free PDF of the full textbook. Cengage does offer a sample chapter on their website, and sometimes libraries have electronic access through platforms like VitalSource or RedShelf. If you're a student, check with your program director. Some community college pharmacy tech programs include the textbook cost in tuition or provide digital access codes at a discount. It's worth asking before you spend eighty dollars on a used copy that might be missing the access code for online quizzes. I've seen people try to find pirated copies online. Don't bother. The scanned versions are usually blurry, pages are missing, and the access codes don't work anyway. Save your money and get a legitimate copy, even if it's an older edition.
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The bottom line is that Delmar's is a solid foundational text. It won't hand you a certification, but it'll give you the knowledge base you need to pass the exam if you study it properly and supplement it with practice questions. Just don't treat it like the only resource you'll ever need.
