To begin, you must add one or more staves using the "staves" tab. Each newly-created staff will begin with a clef and, if the corresponding "header elements" checkboxes are checked, a key signature and a time signature, as specified by the current selections under the "clefs," "key sigs," and "time sigs" tabs.

There is a default space height for staves. Each staff has a scale, which indicates how the staff's space height compares to the default height. A staff scale is a name, for example, "cue," with an associated decimal value. By default, "cue" has the value 0.75, which means the space height of a cue staff is 0.75 times that of a default staff. You can edit the decimal value associated with a staff scale. Doing so adjusts the height of all staves in the score that have that scale accordingly. You can create new staff scales in order to support a larger number of staff sizes in a score. You can also delete existing staff scales. If you try to delete a scale that one or more staves in the score use, you will be prompted to choose a different scale to assign to those staves.

If you hover the mouse cursor over a staff, a gray entry cursor will appear at the nearest available entry cursor position to the left of the mouse cursor. Clicking will make the entry cursor active. Objects can then be inserted at the cursor position, or removed using the backspace key. The ticks protruding rightward from the cursor span an interval of a diatonic seventh, and indicate which octave a newly-entered note will take. The up and down arrow keys adjust the octave of the cursor, and the right and left arrow keys move the cursor to the next or previous symbol on the staff. Notes are entered by letter name, and rests, using the space bar, in both cases taking the duration currently specified under the "notes" tab.

Objects can be selected by clicking them. When selected, most objects can be deleted using the delete key, with the exception of accidentals and header clefs. You can adjust the pitch of a selected note using the up and down arrow keys. If you hold down the shift key, they adjust the accidental. Otherwise, they adjust the pitch stepwise. You can likewise move a selected clef up and down by step using the arrow keys. Thus the way to generate a tenor clef is to enter a C clef, then select it and move it two steps upward from its default, centered position.

To add a key signature or time signature to a staff header, or change a clef, key signature or time signature already in a header, select any of the symbols in the header, then specify and add the desired symbol via its tab. Note that if you position an active entry cursor to the right of a header clef and add a key signature or time signature that way, the new symbol will not be part of the header. This means that it will not be vertically aligned with like symbols in the same position on other staves, and it will follow mid-staff horizontal spacing rules, which are different from header spacing rules. Positioning the entry cursor to the left of a header object is not allowed, so it's possible to check whether an existing object is part of a header by checking where the gray entry cursor appears when hovering the mouse cursor to the left of the object.