Welcome to the K Desktop Environment User Guide. This book is intended to be an introduction to the K Desktop Environment as a whole, with a broad description of the user interface, some practical examples on how to use &kde; for daily work, and some hints on how to customise the &kde; desktop. Included is a table of shortcuts, and some tips and tricks intended to help you find your way around quickly and efficiently. This book is not a guide to the use of the individual applications, as they each have their own User Manual. However, &kde; is an integrated environment — what you learn in this manual and in your own exploration of &kde;'s interface is consistent and readily transferable between &kde; applications. This book also explores some of the philosophy behind &kde; and some of its history, and rounds out with how to find more information, should you need it.