Hi Rose, As far as Software is concerned, you're in an ideal validating situation. <grin> My favorite way to edit on the computer is with Kurzweil, because I like its features and the way it works. I edit rtf, txt, and of course kes files in Kurzweil. Word also works well for validating books, but *not* txt files because it eats the pagebreaks. It's best to edit doc files in word, or at least convert them to rtf in Word if you want to edit them in Kurzweil. The thing to do is go to the volunteer home page and click on the link that says "Step 1, download." That page takes a little while to load, but then you'll see a list of the books awaiting validation. Find something that interests you and that you might want to read anyway. Click on the link for that book, which will bring up a page with the history of that book--when it was submitted, whether other people have been working on it before, etc. You might want to pick something of excellent quality for your first validation, just so you won't run into a bunch of issues. Download the book you chosen, unzip, and enjoy. And of course, don't hesitate to ask questions as needed. Kellie