The preview and the generated documentation show almost identical information. For information about restrictions on the content of generated documentation, see What's not in the documentation?

Documentation overview

Formatting of generated documentation depends on which file type you choose when you generate the documentation and settings in the application you use to view the documentation.

Sections and properties included

You can choose to customize the documentation by including or excluding individual sections (such as Columns, or SQL Script), and individual properties (such as File Group, or Collation). You can specify these inclusions and exclusions for individual objects, groups of objects, databases, or the entire SQL Server instance.

See Setting up the documentation for more information about customizing the documentation.

Object type summaries

To see a summary for an object type, click its name. For example, to see a summary of all the tables in the database, click Tables:

The Description column shows the text that has been added to the database using the MS_Description extended property.

Object documentation

To see information about a particular object, click the object name. The documentation shows the object's properties and SQL creation script.

For tables, the documentation also includes details of columns, indexes, triggers, constraints, permissions, and other extended properties such as input masks.

Icons used in documentation for tables

This example shows the documentation for the WidgetPrices table: