Yes, you could recycle the records instead of packing. The technique involves blanking the record and searching for the blanks when you go to add a new record. Check out this article which decribes it:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb%3Ben-us%3B95250
>Hi,
>
>Is there any way to do pack without open the file with exclcive or remove the deleted records from the file without pack
>
>Best Regards