Authoring with TechWriter Annotations

Instead of relying on the implementer of your database definition to create and maintain comments for your documentation, you can use TechWriter for both authoring and generating the documentation as shown in the following diagram:

This type of authoring involves the following activities:

TechWriter is used to extract the details of your database from it's definition to provide a snapshot of what is being documented.
TechWriter is used to annotate the definitions that make up your database. Those annotations are then stored within the TechWriter project.
TechWriter is used to generate the documentation combining details from the database definition with the authored annotations.

This type of authoring involves extensive use of the TechWriter annotation editor that is available under the Annotations tab.

Because your comments are maintained separately in the TechWriter project, it is important to keep the project in sync with the your database. Each time you start TechWriter, your annotations are checked against the database definition. And any mismatched annotations are reported under the Annotations tab.