The lower (SQL Differences) pane displays a side-by-side listing of differences in the creation SQL script for an object. To display the SQL Differences pane, click an object in the upper (Results) pane.

You can adjust the height of the SQL Differences by dragging the splitter above it up or down.

SQL Prompt view

If you have a SQL Toolbelt or SQL Toolbelt Essential licence and also have SQL Prompt installed, you will get a SQL Prompt view tab on the SQL Differences pane.

Selecting this view will show you the differences using your currently active SQL Prompt formatting style. To view the differences using a different formatting style, simply change the active formatting style in SQL Prompt (in SSMS).

Viewing differences

Lines that contain differences are displayed with a shaded background; text within a line that is different is displayed with a darker shaded background.

The central column shows the type of difference:

There is no icon if the two lines are identical.

Use  Next and  Previous to go to lines that contain a difference. You can also use Alt + Up Arrow and Alt + Down Arrow.

The Line Differences bar

Click  and select Line Differences to display the Line Differences bar. The two versions of the line are shown one on top of the other. This is especially useful when the lines are too long to view all the text:

Scroll bar

Colored blocks in the left scroll bar indicate the location in the script of lines that are different.

 A line of SQL that exists only in the object script on the left.

 A line of SQL that exists only in the object script on the right.

 A line of SQL that exists in both object scripts, but is different.

Searching and copying the creation script

To search the SQL statements, right-click, and click Find.

To search the SQL statements in the other data source, click Find on this side.

The search is not case-sensitive.