Currently have Xpress Pro, have Media Composer ordered through my local reseller.  I have a project that I plan on finishing up here soon on Xpress but might want to do a few touch up things/try some things out on Media Composer to see how it looks if it comes in time, things like Fluid effects and some other stuff.  anyway i have downloaded the the 2.8.3, just wondering if there is anyway to access the documentation before my copy arrives and I install Media Composer on my mac, this way i can look up some different workflow ideas and get prepped and hit the ground running. If there is now way to just install the documentation, is there anyway to find it by looking through the packages included with the installers and grab the documentation out?

I don't think you can install the HELP separately on Mac, as you can on PC.  So, install the whole thing, and look in the "Help" folder, under Avid Media Composer, under Applications.  Launch the file, MCHelp.htm.  Almost everything in the manual is available here.  You can also download PDF versions of all the docs from the Knowledge Base.

ok i knew i remember seeing somewhere that you could install just the documentation, that was back in my PC days!

anyway so can i install everything from MC to get access to the documentation? i guess what i am wondering is will doing this mess up my xpress pro installation?

Technically, you shouldn't have both on at the same time.  Got another Mac?  Or, you could uninstall Xpress, install MC, get the HELP files, uninstall MC, and reinstall Xpress ... whew. 

actually i ended up just exploring the installation packages, decompressing some untill i found where all the pdf and help files are located then just copied them to their own folder, didnt have uninstall/install/uninstall/install after all so that was very very nice and a lot easier than i thought it was going to be

Cool work-around!