Table Properties (Visual Database Tools)

These properties appear in the Properties window when you right click in Table Designer and select Properties. Unless otherwise noted, you can edit these properties in the Properties window when the table is selected.

Note

If the table is published for replication, you must make schema changes using the Transact-SQL statement ALTER TABLE or SQL Server Management Objects (SMO). When schema changes are made using the Table Designer or the Database Diagram Designer, it attempts to drop and recreate the table. You cannot drop published objects, therefore the schema change will fail.

Show Table Properties in Table Designer

Note

The properties in this topic are ordered by category rather than alphabet.

  • Identity Category
    Expands to show properties for Name, Description, and Schema.

  • Name
    Displays the name of the table. To edit the name, type in the text box.

    Warning

    If existing queries, views, user-defined functions, stored procedures, or programs refer to the table, the name modification will make these objects invalid.

  • Database Name
    Shows the name of the data source of the selected table.

  • Description
    Shows a description of the selected table. To see the entire description, or to edit it, click the description and then click the ellipses (…) to the right of the property.

  • Schema
    Shows the name of the schema to which this table belongs. (Applies only to Microsoft SQL Server.)

  • Server Name
    Shows the name of the server for the data source.

  • Table Designer Category
    Expands to show properties for Identity Column, Is Indexable, and Is Replicated.

  • Identity Column
    Shows the column used as the table's identity column. To change the identity column, choose from the drop-down list. Only columns of a numeric data type will show in the list.

  • Is Indexable
    Shows whether the table can be indexed. If the table is not indexable it may be because you are not the table owner or because the table contains columns with data types of text, ntext, or image.

  • Is Replicated
    Shows whether the table is replicated in another location.

  • Regular Data Space Specification Category
    Expands to show properties for (Data Space Type), Filegroup or Partition Scheme Name, and Partition Column List.

  • (Data Space Type)
    Shows whether this table is stored using a filegroup or partition scheme.

  • Filegroup or Partition Scheme Name
    Shows the name of the filegroup or partition scheme.

  • Partition Column List
    Provides access to the Partition Column List dialog box.

  • Row GUID Column
    Shows the column used by Microsoft SQL Server as the table's ROWGUID column. To change the ROWGUID column, choose from the drop-down list. (Applies only to SQL Server 7.0 or higher.)

  • Text/Image Filegroup
    Provides a drop-down list from which you can choose the filegroup for columns that have text or image data types. If the table is stored using a partition scheme, leave this field blank.