Right Way SQL Formatter — SSMS 22 Extension Gallery feed (extension)

Right Way SQL Formatter — SSMS 22 Extension

Format T-SQL inside SQL Server Management Studio 22 — the classic "Poor Man's T-SQL Formatter" style, modernized. The same engine powers the VS Code extension and a CLI, battle-tested against 396 real-world SQL files (First Responder Kit, Ola Hallengren, sp_WhoIsActive, DarlingData, tSQLt).

What you get in SSMS

• Format Document / Format Selection from the Tools menu, the query editor context menu, or Ctrl+K, F.
• Options dialog (Tools ▸ Right Way SQL Formatter Options) with grouped settings — from classic SSMS defaults to trailing commas, vertical alignment of columns and JOINs, and compact single-statement blocks. Settings persist across SSMS restarts.
• Never destroys invalid SQL — unparseable input still gets best-effort formatting plus a diagnostic comment describing what's wrong, never a silent failure.
• Your style, preserved — both expr AS alias and alias = expr column alias styles are kept as you wrote them.

Installation

SSMS 22 has no Extension Manager UI, but installs VSIXes directly — no admin rights needed:

1. Download the .vsix from this page.

2. Close SSMS.

3. Run it with SSMS's own installer:

   "C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio 22\Release\Common7\IDE\VSIXInstaller.exe" RightWaySqlFormatter.SSMS22.vsix
   

   (Double-clicking the file routes to Visual Studio's installer if VS is installed, which also works — make sure "SQL Server Management Studio 22" is ticked.)

4. Start SSMS — the commands appear under Tools and in the query editor right-click menu.

To uninstall:

"C:\...\SSMS 22\Release\Common7\IDE\VSIXInstaller.exe" /uninstall:e857c020-26ea-4b6f-b0d0-d97fb572ee81

Which SSMS versions?

Note: Microsoft does not officially support extensions in SSMS 21/22 — an SSMS update may require reinstalling the extension.

Example

Input:

select e.employeeid,e.firstname,e.lastname,d.departmentname from employees e inner join departments d on e.departmentid=d.departmentid where e.active=1 order by e.lastname

Output (default settings):

SELECT
    e.EmployeeId
    ,e.FirstName
    ,e.LastName
    ,d.DepartmentName
FROM employees e
INNER JOIN departments d
    ON e.DepartmentId = d.DepartmentId
WHERE e.Active = 1
ORDER BY e.LastName

Source, issues, license

Free and open source under AGPL v3, forked from PoorMansTSqlFormatter by Tao Klerks. Report issues and find the CLI + VS Code extension at github.com/BadMonkeySoftware/right-way-sql-formatter.