Working with Database Tools

3 4

After you build your tables and create and modify the relationships among them, you may want to analyze your work to make sure that your tables are as well-designed as possible. This section briefly describes tools that can help you do that.

Using the Table Analysis Utilities

Access includes three options on the Analyze submenu of the Tools menu (see Figure 4-32) that are useful for assessing your tables: Table, Performance, and Documenter.

Figure 4-32. You can use the selections on the Analyze submenu to ensure that your tables are designed to function effectively.

The Table option opens the Table Analyzer Wizard, which you can use to split a table containing duplicate data into two or more related tables. This wizard can be helpful when you're normalizing a database. The Performance option opens the Performance Analyzer, which makes suggestions for improving database performance. The Documenter option can be used to produce a report listing tables, table fields, and all their properties.

The Table Analysis utilities are described in more detail in Chapter 15, "Using Add-Ins to Expand Access Functionality."