RE: Understanding someone elses database

Hi Matthew The following below is gleaned from the Access help under the topic Print the Design of a database or database object.

Print the Relationships window

Open the Access database whose relationships you want to print.
On the Tools menu, click Relationships to open the Relationships window.
On the File menu, click Print Relationships.
Note In a Microsoft Access project, the Print Relationships menu command is not available. However, you can print database diagrams.

Tip

The Print Relationships Wizard generates a report with the default name and header Relationships for databasename; the header contains the date that you created the report. You can save this report for future reference.

Print the design characteristics of a database object

On the Tools menu, point to Analyze, and then click Documenter.
Do one of the following:
Click the tab that corresponds to the type of database object you want to view or print.

Click the All Object Types tab to display a complete list of objects in the database.

Select the objects whose definition you want to view or print.
Click Options to specify which features of the selected object you want to print, and then click OK.
To generate the report that displays the definitions, click OK.
Do one of the following:
To print the definitions, click Print on the toolbar. You might want to check the length of your definitions before printing them, because some definitions, particularly those for forms and reports, can be many pages long.

To output the definitions to an HTML file, a Microsoft Excel worksheet, a Rich Text Format file, an MS-DOS text file, or a file in Report Snapshot format, click Export on the File menu, and then complete the Export Report 'ReportName' To dialog box.

There are third party tools that will document and analyse your database but you will have to purchase them.

I hope that helps

Thanks

Newson