I am just getting to grips with 5, having bought it sometime ago with an 80pounds sterling instruction CD that doesn't work on my PC! Loes, the producer of the CD, was not very helpful; then I found Madmumblers on the web and bought their instruction manual for a fraction of the price of the other CD and am now getting on famously!! I have bought the V.6 upgrade which I can only quote in UK pounds - I think it was £195 - as it does have some nice little tweaks on it that are helpful. The first is a design database which actually SHOWS all the designs and will also convert files from one type to another [such as a HUS to a PES etc.]. It recalculates stitches when resizing, instead of just stretching or shrinking and there are several new fill stitches. There is an applique "wizard", auto background deletion for photo and cross stitch and a data split tool if you want a part of a pattern - not like the "box" that only lets you move a square.
Hope this doesn't sound too involved - let me tell you I have only been actually learning this now from my new manual for about 4 days - prior to that I didn't understand a thing!!
Good luck

Mavis-
Is Madmumblers on the internet? Is it a book? Who authored it?
Where did you find it? I'm curious.
Stasia