I was recently looking a a free database schema tool to produce a technical specification for a MySQL database. I downloaded and installed a number of freeware software tools, but most of them didn’t quite offer the functionality that I needed. Also, some of them were extremely “clunky” and need quite a lot of refining – not sure of the names of the software I tried, but thats not really the point of this post.

After awhile I came across MySQL workbench. I think its a great piece of software, especially since its free The most useful feature I found was to be able to import a db schema from a .sql file and then the application gives a great representation of the schema. The one thing I didn’t find was how to show foreign key links between tables – If anyone can tell me how to do this I would be grateful.

So, if you’re on the lookout for a free tool to give a good representation of a database schema, then do go ahead and try MySQL workbench.