Absolutely agree that a hand scripted score is much superior to machine made, but it's almost impossible to find decent nibs for my goose quill anymore in my local shops.

Stilly -

Also agree that shopping the web is advisable, especially for these programs. There are some better deals than buying direct from the makers, although on these two in particular you must qualify for the educational discount or they're simple not worth the price.

If you want to try one (or both) of them out, most music stores that cater to band/orchestra trades should have the free "demo program" CDs of at least one of them. You can do just about everything except save and print with the demos.

I found that my demo version of Sibelius also disabled the Help files, but if you click a "tool" and hit F1 the "context sensitive Help" feature opens, and once it's opened you can navigate elsewhere in the help files. I've been told that's been fixed in newer demos; but it hasn't been worth my time to get another - so the fix is just a rumor.

John