I downloaded PowerTab over the weekend to check it out. I was especially interested in the export-to-ASCII feature, since I am not anxious to laboriously re-work the pieces I've written out in RandyTab just to cast them in a format accessible to anyone.

PowerTab is indeed quite powerful, but I was a bit disillusioned because it includes so many more features than I need: multiple tracks (guitar + bass, up to seven instruments and no less than two), standard musical notation including key signature, a whole lot of electric guitar effects, etc. I have a little bit of formal musical education, but not really enough to easily and effectively deal with PowerTab.

I think I'll stick with the much simpler RandyTab, warts and all. To me, it seems to be "the people's" tab program, quite appropriate to the folk process. I have succeeded in using RT to write tabs for a couple of Mississippi John Hurt songs to my own satisfaction. I made a few minor compromises, writing separate notes in a couple of places where I couldn't make the "hammer-on" or the "slide" program functions produce the sounds that I'd like, but the result sounds fine and constitutes a terrific learning tool. (How can you not be able to learn a song when you can see the tab for finger-placement while simultaneously listening to how each note sounds in the overall arrangement?)