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Introduction
============

This guide describes how to use the QGIS processing framework. It assumes no
previous knowledge of the Processing framework or any of the applications that
it rely on. It assumes basic knowledge of QGIS. The chapters about scripting
assume you have some basic knowledge of Python and maybe the QGIS Python API.

This guide is designed for self-study or to be used for running a processing
workshop.

Examples in this guide use QGIS 3.4. They might not work or not be available in
versions other than that one.

This guide is comprised of a set of small exercises of progressive complexity.
If you have never used the processing framework, you should start from the very
beginning. If you have some previous experience, feel free to skip lessons. They
are more or less independent of each other, and each one introduces some new
concept or some new element, as indicated in the chapter title and the short
introduction at the beginning of each chapter. That should make it easy to
locate lessons dealing with a particular topic.

For a more systematic description of all the framework components and their
usage, it is recommended to check the corresponding chapter in the user manual.
Use it as a support text along with this guide.

All the exercises in this guide use the same free dataset used throughout the
training manual and referenced at section :ref:`data_downloadlink`. The zip
file to download contains several folders corresponding to each one of the
lessons in this guide. In each of them you will find a QGIS project file. Just
open it and you will be ready to start the lesson.

Enjoy!