The Classical Text Editor was designed to enable scholars working on a critical edition or on a text with commentary or translation to prepare a camera-ready copy or electronic publication without bothering much about making up and page proofs. Its features, formed in continuous discussion with editors using the program, meet the practical needs of the scholar concerning text constitution, entries to different apparatus and updating them when the text has been changed, as well as creating and redefining sigla. The possibility to search for and visualise manuscript constellations may be of considerable help in detecting affiliations between sources. It is the primary purpose of the Classical Text Editor to do the automatable work which consumes so much time and energy, and let the scholar concentrate on scientific issues.