The screen

The bars, the windows and the note beside the mouse.

Everything is within reach of three places: the top bar, the toolbar at the bottom and the note that follows the mouse.

Where	What it does
Top bar	Your cash (click it for Finances) and a button for every window.
Date and speed	The date in the bottom-left corner, with pause and the game speeds.
Toolbar	Inspect, Roads, Railways, Ports, Landscape, Bulldoze, Undo and Vehicle. Choosing a group opens a row of its tools above the bar.
Minimap	The whole world in the corner. Click it to jump there.
News	Messages about your company appear as things happen. Click one to go to the place it is about; news of goals, subsidies and requests opens Goals. The News window keeps them, and under All news also what rivals and other towns are up to.

The note beside the mouse

Before you build it shows the price of one tile of road, track, wires or bridge.
While you drag it shows the total price and what you are building, in green.
When something cannot be built it turns red and says why: a building in the way, ground too steep, not enough money, or a council that says no.

With Inspect (1), click a vehicle, station, industry or building to open its window. Point at anything to see what it is.
With Inspect, rest the pointer on a station, town name, industry, vehicle or building for a moment and a card beside it gives the key numbers: cargo waiting and ratings, population and what the council thinks of you, what an industry made and how much was carried, a vehicle's load and profit. Settings can switch the cards off.
With a build tool in hand, the bottom-left corner names what is under the pointer and gives its coordinates and height.
That window sits on the left. Clicking something else replaces it, and a back arrow in its title bar returns to what you were looking at.
Screens such as Vehicles, Finances or this guide open one at a time: a new one replaces the last, and pressing a screen's key or button again closes it.
Press a window's pin to keep it open whatever else you open. Settings has a switch to let every window stay open instead.
Towns and industries are labelled with small cargo icons: hollow for what they need, filled for what they produce.
Drag a window by its title bar. Esc closes the one on top.

Vehicles (V) lists your fleet with each vehicle's profit. Sort it by Needs attention to see the ones in trouble first.
Stations (Ctrl+S) lists every station with what is waiting there and its ratings.
Lines (Ctrl+L) lists your lines with their stops, vehicles and profit. See Lines.
Problems (I, the warning sign, with a count) lists everything that is stuck or going wrong, each with why and a button that fixes it or takes you there.
In these lists, click a row to open it, or its target button to see it on the map. In Problems, a click on a row shows the place and the button beside it fixes it.
Goals (J, the flag) holds your first steps, your achievements, how near your company goal is and the subsidies and town requests on offer. See Goals & achievements.

F5 saves at once and F9 loads that save again.
The game menu (Esc) saves under a name of your choice and loads any saved game.
The game also saves by itself, every three months unless you change it in Settings.

Every shortcut is on Controls.