Specify Articles
Select the object to publish as an article. Articles can be all or filtered partitions of a table, or can be database objects such as stored procedures, views and user-defined functions.
Determine what articles to include in the publication based on the type of replication you are using and requirements of the specific article. If you are publishing a database object that references other database objects, you must publish all objects referenced by the object. For example, the Products Above Average Price view on the Northwind database retrieves data from the PRODUCTS tables. If you publish this view, you must also publish the PRODUCTS tables as part of the publication.
To filter data in a table, continue in the Create Publication Wizard and you will be able to filter horizontally or vertically for any type of publication, and for merge publications, you can create dynamic filters and/or join filters.
If you are creating a merge publication and you indicated that Subscribers would be running SQL Server version 7.0 or earlier, a clock icon will appear on any tables that contain timestamp columns. Publishing timestamp columns as part of merge replication was not available in SQL Server version 7.0 or earlier, and when Subscribers are running SQL Server version 7.0 or earlier, they are limited to the functionality of that version. You will not be able to publish data from these tables without first removing the timestamp columns.
An article cannot be published both in a merge publication and in a snapshot or transactional publication that allows updatable subscriptions. If the article has been specified for a merge publication and you are creating a snapshot or transactional publication that allows updatable subscriptions, a merge icon will appear next to the table name on the Specify Articles page indicating that the article cannot be included in the new publication.
If the article has been specified for a snapshot or transactional publication that allows updatable subscriptions and you are creating a merge publication, a red circle with a slash will appear next to the table on the Specify Articles page indicating that the article cannot be included in the new publication.
The table must have a primary key for it to be published as part of a transactional publication. If you are creating a transactional publication, a key icon with an X over it will appear next to tables that do not have primary keys. Tables with this icon cannot be included in the new publication.
The best use of default article properties is to set the defaults for an object type before creating any articles of that type. If you create articles first, and then change the defaults, you will be prompted whether to update the properties of the previously published articles. SQL Server overwrites all properties that have defaults in articles that have previously been published. This may affect more properties than you intended. The default properties that you set do not persist outside of this wizard. When you open Publication Properties, the defaults may not be the same as what you defined in this wizard.
See Also
Planning for Each Type of Replication
Publishers, Distributors, and Subscribers