Microsoft Docs


Microsoft Docs is the library of technical documentation for end users, developers, and IT professionals who work with Microsoft products. Microsoft Docs website provides technical specifications, conceptual articles, tutorials, guides, API references, code samples and other information related to Microsoft software and web services. Microsoft Docs was introduced in 2016 as a replacement of MSDN and TechNet libraries which previously hosted some of these materials.

Structure and features

The content on Microsoft Docs is organised into groups based on product or technology and steps of working with it: evaluating, getting started, planning, deploying, managing, and troubleshooting. Navigation panel and product/service pages show material breakdown according to these principle. Each article displays its estimated reading time. There's a function to download specific docs section as a PDF file for offline use.
Website has responsive layout so it is designed to work on mobile devices and tablets.
Most documentation content is open-sourced and accepts pull requests. Each article is represented as a Markdown file in various GitHub repositories. Microsoft released a set of Visual Studio Code extensions, Docs Authoring Pack, to assist in editing Microsoft Docs content. It includes the support of Docs-specific markdown features.

History

Microsoft Docs preview was introduced in June 2016, initially containing.NET documentation. The process of migrating the bulk of MSDN and TechNet libraries' content have taken approximately two years. Key events: