Compact and repair not working

Resolved · Medium Priority · Version 365

Fri 8 Mar 2019, 12:16 Delegate Patrick said...

Patrick has attended:
Access Intermediate course

Compact and repair not working

I'm having problems with the Compact and Repair Database function.

I can click the button and for a few seconds it seems as though something is happening, but the database doesn't close and then reopen as it normally should, and the file size does not change, so it is not actually doing anything.

Any suggestions?

I previously had a problem with this function and it was something to do with the default file format for blank databases and new database sort order settings, but changing those doesn't seem to do anything to help.

Fri 8 Mar 2019, 21:34 Trainer Jens said...

RE: Compact and repair not working

Hi Patrick,

Thank you for the forum question.

Compact and repair will not close and reopen the database. Compact and repair remove empty space in your database so the file size will only get smaller if there is empty space in it. If you delete a lot of records from the database the file size will not get smaller before you remove the empty space (run Compact and repair).

It is not a compression tool.

You can reduce the file size by looking at the field properties. You may have a field with the data type text. By changing the number of characters from default 255 characters and then run Compact and repair the file size will get smaller. How much smaller is a question about how many records you have.

Microsoft has not developed the compression technology in Access for years. If the data model is created in Excel Power Pivot the files size is approximately 10% of the file size in Access for the same number of tables and records

Kind regards

Jens Bonde
Microsoft Office Specialist Trainer

Tel: 0207 987 3777
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Fri 15 Mar 2019: Automatically marked as resolved.

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Access tip:

Create calculated fields that work out your age

You can uset eh year function to work out the year from NOW function and then subtract it with your date of birth type field

Age=Year(Now( ))-Year([DoB])

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