I have just got Sibelius Student version, which I am playing with and gradually learning the commands.

Does anyone know if there is a way to write a piece in swing time, and get it to play back appropriately? I can't find it mentioned in the user guide, but it seems to be a pretty common notation issue, so I am hoping that there is an easy solution which I just haven't found yet.

Create > Text > Other System Text > Metric modulation.

Where the text marker appears, right click and select which you want

I can't remember if it will take not for this for playback or not, but that's half the problem solved anyway...

Press Ctrl+Alt+T to add a tempo then click the place where you want the tempo marking to be. Then just type "Swung" in the tempo marking and it will play back like that.

Many thanks, it's doing it now.

If you want it to play back in swing, you will have to go into performance which I think is in tools, can't remember and change it to swing.