slow Access database

My new database is slower than others I have written. The slowness shows itself at opening of forms and reports. Once a form is open the user can move from table row to table row, with the associated information, quite quickly. My suspicion is that the forms and reports are slow to get set up because they have many subforms and subreports, sometimes nested, and combo boxes. I notice that a few small changes(format in reports) to the database increase its size from 5.3 meg to 7.5 meg or so, before I compact it. I wonder whether this is connected with the slowness. Any suggestions?