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What is the best way to learn Notation? What self-help resources are available?

Different people have different preferences for how to learn to use software, the main distinction being whether they prefer to read documentation, view videos, or use no documentation and just explore.

Explore on your own: Notation products have been designed so that most of their features can be learned through exploring, without reference to documentation. As you hold the mouse over a button, for example, Notation products will display a nearby "tip", or will display a one-line message in the statusbar at the bottom of its window, with an explanation of the purpose of that button. You do not have to worry about stumbling into commands that might mess up your previous song editing work, because all commands in Notation products are undoable; and you can reverse a long history of commands if desired.

Tutorial videos: There is also a series (and growing) of tutorial videos which show you step-by-step how do do many types of tasks in Notation Musician and Notation Composer. These are available in our Support area at https://www.notation.com/TutorialVideos.php

User Guide: Even if you prefer to explore new software on your own, you might want to review the Getting Started section of Notation 's Help documentation. It is easy and quick reading. Use the User's Guide command in Notation's Help menu. All of the documentation in Notation's Help is the equivalent of 600-750 pages of printed documentation (depending on which product you are using). Notation is very well documented. You may not need to read much of this documentation at all, but it's there if you need it. If you have a "how to" question, use the Index command in Notation's Help/User's Guide. Then either navigate through the content outline of the documentation, or use the Index, or use a Search. Also, all of Notation's dialog boxes, except very simple ones, have a Help button that takes you directly to the Help documentation that describes that dialog box within the context of an explanation of why the dialog box is available. Please visit https://www.notation.com/Documentation.php to download a pdf version of the User's Guide for Musician or Composer.

The manuals are written and maintained in English language and are online. For languages other than English we offer a convenient online translator which is passed before the manual page is displayed. Your favorite language can be selected by the menu "Setup / Select language of User Guide". The default language is English.