But gee Lynn, I'm drooling and jealous.

Sibelius is the one I've been saving my bucks for, but unless you can get an "educational discount" it's over $600 US.

The closest competitor, Finale, is similarly priced. I've looked at both, and either is "publisher grade" stuff, but Sibelius does seem to offer easier (and very flexible) tab notation. (I hate working with tab, but many of my friends always seem to want stuff that way.)

The link (clicky) provided by guest will lead you to some extensive discussion - with links to other recent threads. I'd suggest checking it out.

Also - you should be able to get a free CD "demo" version of Sibelius (and/or Finale) from any music store that handles "band and orchestra" stuff.

You may be able to download the trial version for Sibelius - it installs about 4.6MB. Finale installs at about 23.7MB, so download isn't too practical, even if available.

Printing is limited/disabled, and the "Help" file is disabled - same for both.

While it seems rather stupid to me to have the Help disabled (isn't a demo so you can see what it can do?), in either demo program you can "select" any tool and hit F1 and the help file will open. Once you're "in through the back door" you can look over anything in Help.

Check out the link. There is some good info there.

John