The Encyclopedia features very detailed information about characters, planets, technologies, ships, and so on, as well as brief synopses of episodes and movies. It also features many different diagrams, from examples of different writing systems to the evolution of uniforms and shuttlecraft. The book is filled with pictures, most of them in color.

It was written by Michael and Denise Okuda and illustrated by Doug Drexler. The first edition was published in 1994 and was co-written with Debbie Mirek.