you've probably compacted your open db many times while
working on it, by simply clicking Tools, Database
Utilites, Compact. if you're wanting your user to be able
to compact the db, but don't want to give him/her access
to the Tools menu, then create a custom menu and COPY the
Compact selection over to it from the Database Utilites
submenu. this should work fine in A2k (or later,
presumably).
keep in mind that you don't want multi-user dbs compacted
by users "at will" (such as a "backend" db on a server).
but any db that sits on a user's hard drive and is
accessed only by the PC's current user (this
includes "frontend" dbs) can be compacted at any time. the
easiest way to do this is to set up the db to compact
automatically when the db closes (Tools, Options, General
tab, Compact on Close).
hth
