AE addresses a wide range of issues in the extraction and analysis of point sources in ACIS observations, embraces difficult observational environments such as multiple observations and crowded fields, and provides a lot of visualization feedback to the observer. As one might expect, §7 of this manual, Using ACIS Extract, is somewhat long since it tries to thoroughly describe every option. §7.1 includes a reference to my own fairly complex ``recipe'' for extracting multiple ACIS observations of a field. This recipe is not the place to start if you have little experience with ACIS analysis because it tries hard to do a very careful job of the extraction.
If AE or ACIS analysis in general are new to you, then rest assured that a basic extraction of an ACIS source list from a single ObsId can be performed quite easily (as described in the remainder of this Section) once you've gathered the various data products needed as inputs to CIAO. Using AE is complex only if you choose to make your ACIS analysis complex!
Before starting an AE extraction, carefully follow the instructions for installing AE in §6. Common installation mistakes include: