Summary

You should perform the compacting process regularly—especially on databases that contain application data. The compacting process provides major benefits in terms of both performance and conservation of disk space. The more activity that occurs on a database, the more frequently you should compact it. Although you should consider the compacting process an important part of the database maintenance process, you also need to remember that there is absolutely no substitute for proper backup techniques. This hour shows you a new feature included in Access 2003 that allows you to back up an open database.

You also need to understand the database conversion options that are available in Access 2003. You can convert databases from one version of Access to another by using the user interface. Using all the techniques covered in this hour should save you a lot of time and effort in maintaining and working with databases.