A replication publication has to be initialised. Your choices are init from snapshot or init from backup, but there's no option of 'do not initialise'
If you're just replicating one table in a large database, then I recommend init from snapshot, as it will just snapshot the tables involved in the replication.
Gail Shaw
Microsoft Certified Master: SQL Server, MVP, M.Sc (Comp Sci)
SQL In The Wild: Discussions on DB performance with occasional diversions into recoverability