I've been using Sibelius for a year and a half and am very pleased with it. It's versatile, flexible, and you can modify it to suit your tastes. It's alos VERY easy to get started with. You'll quickly find, though, that mouce-input is the slowest possible means of inputing music with Sibelius. With a standard keyboard (including a number pad) You can choose the note values with the right hand on the number pad and type in letter names with the left hand. If you have midi connections and a synthesizer keyboard, you can do step-time input - again, choosing your note values with the right, but inputing notes from the keyboard (saves having to change octaves periodically). Alternatively, you can use what they call 'flexi-time' input, where you choose the parameters then input entirely by playing. Sibelius determines the proper note values to use (which you can then edit if your time wasn't as perfect as the machine's!) Finally, if you have a scanner, you can scan sheet music directly into the program and edit it as if you'd input the whole thing yourself. Check out the website at Sibelius.com. You can also view scores made by thousands of composers (and would-be composers) at SibeliusMusic.com.

All the best

Lynn