This manual was written with newcomers to EMBOSS in mind. You will benefit from at least a basic appreciation of molecular biology and some familiarity with UNIX and the C programming language. You should know how to open, use, save and close files using a text editor. It will also help if you've used the EMBOSS programs and are familiar with the command line (see the EMBOSS Users Guide).

The EMBOSS web site provides auxiliary and reference documentation not included in the printed version of the documentation, in particular complete documentation for the libraries and applications. If you cannot find what you need here, you should try searching the EMBOSS website (http://emboss.open-bio.org).