PK Tip: Using the Compact Command for Maintenance and Repair

In these days of large, cheap hard drives, most of us don't feel any need to compact a database file to save disk space.

But Personal Knowbase's Compact command does more than reduce your data file to its minimum size. Here are three additional tasks Compact can help you with:

Remove Unused Keywords

Over time, we can accumulate extra keywords in our data files which are no longer assigned to any articles. The Compact command reports any keywords that are not in use and offers the option of removing them.

Repair a Damaged File

Even in these days of safe computing, files can become corrupted. One common way this happens is when a USB drive with open files is suddenly removed from a computer.

The Compact command reports any file errors it finds. In this case, PK will recover as much data as possible. Recovered articles are written to one data file, and partially recovered articles are written to a second data file for you to inspect and re-incorporate into your file as necessary.

Revert a File to PK Version 3

The Compact command can write its resulting file in the older Personal Knowbase version 3 format. This is useful, for example, if you need to share a file with someone who is using an older version of the software. Simply select Personal Knowbase 3 as the Save as type option.

Note that you will lose any version 4 options used in the data file when reverting to version 3 format. Please make sure you keep a copy of your original version 4 format file.

Consider running the Compact command from time to time to check and maintain your data file.